


Horror.exe: Rebirth

by Switch_Statement



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Action, Complete, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Gen, Good versus Evil, Horror, Mild Blood, No Sex, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:34:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 30
Words: 69,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21639673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Switch_Statement/pseuds/Switch_Statement
Summary: Life used to be peaceful on Bygone Island. However, after a computer program of Tails' goes horribly wrong, Sonic finds himself possessed by a fiend who will stop at nothing to achieve ultimate power. Can Tails and the gang save their friend, or is it too late for them to even save themselves? (A Sonic.exe reimagining, set in the Sonic Boom universe.)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	1. Just Another Rainy Day

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for taking the time to read this story! This is being crossposted from Fanfiction.net, under the account name "2017tnt." The story is not yet complete, but it's about halfway done (13 out of 28 (expected number) chapters posted). If you'd like to read what I have so far over there, I don't blame you. However, for the few who like waiting for updates, a new chapter will be posted here every week until I run out of buffer chapters (preferably never, but who knows?). Again, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy this fic!

The day before the apocalypse started off with a bang.

Actually, quite a few bangs. Very loud ones. Alongside some other equally deafening noises.

Raindrops, large and opaque, began pouring from the sky in a frenzied cascade that sent everything and everyone on the island running for cover. Strong winds followed, kicking up the waves so high that they threatened to flood Bygone Island. Bright, vivid streaks of lightning struck the ground at random, immediately followed by the loud roaring of thunder. Life, in general, temporarily ground to a halt.

That trend remained unbroken throughout the village, even as the casual observer came upon the patched-together cottage that was home to one of the most famous inhabitants of this world. Even though most expected him to be out and about, performing some sort of heroic deed, in reality, he hated the rain just as much as everybody else did. Thus, without any reason to step outside and get wet, he waited inside with his friends (who had also taken refuge in his cottage upon the first drops hitting the ground) for the storm to pass.

Said inhabitant had a cheap red bouncy ball in their hands, and was currently using it to play catch. With himself.

Even though most normal games of catch needed two people in order to function properly, due to the high speed the ball traveled, speed was Sonic the Hedgehog’s middle name. Thus, whenever he tossed the ball, he caught it so quickly it looked like he’d never let it go at all.

The other four temporary inhabitants of the cottage had immersed themselves in far more normal activities. Well, normal for them. A huge pile of leaves covered a section of the wood floor, which Sticks frantically sorted into two piles as if the results of her sort would cure cancer. Tails’ spare-parts-and-elbow-grease laptop filled the room with a steady whining noise as the kitsune hunched over, typing so fast that his fingers seemed blurred. Despite being fully charged, it was plugged into the wall, in order to, in Tails’ words, “give it a little extra juice.” Amy’s hammer rested in a secure hatch above her as she exchanged it for a paintbrush and returned to a canvas that had been in progress for weeks. Knuckles held weights in both hands, but his arms hung at his sides for now. Instead, he carried them with him as he walked up to Tails.

“Hey, Tails,” Knuckles said, “ can I see what you’re doing?”

“Not yet, the program I’m writing isn’t done,” was Tails’ simple reply. “This is really complex. It won’t make any sense until I’ve finished it. But that will be soon.”

So, he resumed typing, and Sonic took a break from throwing the ball to sneak a peek at Tails’ project. Sure enough, the bits and pieces that he saw made no sense whatsoever. Punctuated with vocabulary well beyond Sonic’s reading level, filled with symbols that somehow pulsed and shifted and bounced around the screen, and causing the laptop to heat up so much that Sonic swore he could smell something burning, Sonic had to admit that he was way out of his league here.

He went back to catching the ball. Everyone else resumed what they were previously doing. The room once again became filled with the sound of Tails’ laptop straining to handle his project, punctuated by raindrops slamming into the roof at high speed. For a rainy day, everyone recognized this pattern as normal.

Knuckles proceeded to turn on the static-filled television on in order to get an update about when the nasty weather might end. It took quite a bit of searching on his part (even though the television had only five channels on it) to locate and tune to the one where he’d have a shot at catching the weather, where a very soaked Soar the Eagle clutched the remains of a singed, smoking umbrella while talking into the microphone.

_“As you can see, I’ve just had my umbrella struck by lightning and fried to a crisp. This is a further sign that this thunderstorm is way worse than the norm for the area. The radar is saying it should be over us for the rest of the day. Stay indoors if possible, and whatever you do, do not-"_

The television cut off just as a sound like a miniature explosion filled the air. The television, lights, and everything electronic in the house (besides Tails’ laptop, since that didn’t require a plug to function) shone impossibly bright for a second or two before plunging into darkness. Sonic’s ears rang, Sticks screeched and dove for cover, Amy plugged her ears with her fingers, and Knuckles… just kind of stood there, completely unperturbed by his friends’ actions. All he said was “Wait, what were we not supposed to do?”

Tails let out a little half-chuckle. “Sorry, guys… the thing I’m working on must’ve caused a bit of a power surge.”

Amy risked looking out the window, and noted that the cottages near them had lost power as well, based on the fact that no television noises or bright glowing penetrated their windows.

“That was more than just ‘a bit of a power surge,’ Tails,” Amy chided. “You knocked out the power for half the neighborhood! Maybe that’s a sign you should take a break.”

“I agree with Amy,” Sonic said. “You should turn that thing off before the neighbors start rioting.”

“Don’t worry,” Sticks interjected, “I’m always ready for a riot! Just give me a minute, I need to get my riot supplies from the burrow.”

Without another word, she dashed out the door into the pouring rain, despite everyone’s feeble protests. Tails, meanwhile, quietly complied with Amy’s wishes and powered off the laptop. Its ever-present whine faded away to silence, and the noise of raindrops hitting the roof once again took precedence in everyone’s ears.

Tails put his laptop down carefully on the kitchen counter, then wandered back into the living room to sit down on the couch. The old thing, already burdened with Knuckles’ weight, let out an indignant groan as Tails plopped down, but did not collapse, much to the relief of Sonic.

The power, thankfully, turned back on after a few minutes. The few light bulbs installed in the ceiling turned in. The television flickered to life, its droning noise drowning out the pounding of the rain. And the radiator began to make its familiar thrumming sound once more. Soar the Eagle continued his report from the television screen. _“I’m sorry for the fade-out, but my microphone stopped working for a few minutes. We may have more on what caused it, right after this.”_

The news show went to a commercial, but no one saw it, as Knuckles managed to turn off the television and restore the relative silence. Everyone resumed their previous activities, save Tails, who went into the kitchen to make himself a quick lunch. However, they only managed to continue for a few minutes before being interrupted again, this time by someone outside screeching, “I will not stand for this!”

Everyone raced out the front door to investigate the cause of the noise, and they found it in a hurry. Sticks was marching around in circles, chanting nonsense to the sky, all while wielding a pitchfork in one hand and a torch (which was somehow flaming despite the storm) in the other.

Sticks only glanced at them for a second before going back to marching and chanting. She probably would have kept going on for hours if Amy hadn’t interrupted her.

“Sticks, what are you doing?”

If looks could kill, Amy would be lying on the floor in a pool of her own blood. “What do you _think_ I’m doing? You asked me to help the neighbors start rioting, so I’m trying to be inspirational!”

Sonic, Tails, and Amy promptly facepalmed. Knuckles tried to do the same, but did it so hard that he might as well have punched himself in the face.

“That’s not what we said, Sticks,” Tails said. Then, his eyes darted over towards the torch. Not only was the wick flaming, but the fire had begun to spread to the top of the torch. At this rate, Sticks’ hand would be ablaze in less than a minute. “And how did you light that torch?”

“Easy! I coated it in oil,” said Sticks, unaware that half the torch was alight. “Why are you so interested?” Tails started to form a reasonable response, but he remained silent, mouth agape, as he watched the flames spread all the way down the torch and threaten to engulf Sticks' right hand.

“Sticks, is your hand _supposed_ to catch fire?” Knuckles said this slowly, pointing at Sticks' hand. The flames hadn’t quite gotten there yet, but it was only a matter of time.

Sticks took a look and her hand and started screaming. “Someone get some sand, or a blanket, or something! I can’t lead riots with one hand missing!”

Amy rolled her eyes. “Sticks, the beach is two feet away! Just use that,” she instructed.

Sticks complied without a second thought, but not in the way everyone expected. Instead of just shoving the torch in an abandoned dune and letting time do the rest, she started picking up clumps of damp sand and tossing them on top of the torch, not realizing that any progress she made when the sand covered a flaming part immediately got erased when raindrops hit the oil. The flames hungrily licked at every part of the torch it could find, not spreading, but still perilously close to burning off Sticks’ hand.

Sonic groaned. “Just drop it like it’s hot, Sticks! Because it is!”

Sticks let go of the torch, which promptly embedded itself in the rain-soaked sand of a dune. It must’ve been very loose sand, for the torch buried most of itself in the dune before stopping. A few seconds later, the presence of stinking black tendrils of smoke indicated that the fire had gone out.

“Come on,” said Tails, “Let’s get back inside before we all get waterlogged.” He then proceeded to shake himself like a dog, slinging water in all directions.

Everyone hustled back inside the cabin, except for Sticks, who dug out the burnt remains of the torch so she could carry them inside, along with the pitchfork she had brought for the “riot.”

Things quickly returned to normal once more. Tails finished making his lunch, ate it, and went back to working on his mystery project on the laptop. The others went back to whatever they had previously been doing.

All in all, nothing differed about that day from every other rainy day in existence.

And all five of them liked it that way.


	2. The 12:07 to Bygone Island

The rain somehow fell even harder at the rickety dock on the shore of the mainland.

Those who could see the dock from the side would notice that the area was crammed to bursting with those who had bought a ticket to the next couple of ferries, while those viewing it from above would only see what appeared to be a roof made of brightly colored umbrellas. Under one of those umbrellas stood a mother and her teenaged daughter, both of them shivering despite the raincoats they wore. The mother, a lioness, stood ramrod straight to avoid bumping into someone else as she clutched her vibrant purple umbrella, and her daughter mimicked her pose as she held her wildly blowing pink umbrella in one hand and the backpack that housed the few belongings she'd brought with her in the other.

After her divorce, Priscilla had kept one eye on her lone child, Elise, at all times. With no one else to love (her parents, unfortunately, were long gone, and she was the only child on her side of the family) and very few people to be loved by (she'd cut contact with most of her ex-husband's side of the family, and that seemed to be a mutual action) she'd turned all that affection towards Elise. However, Elise couldn't help but feel more than feel a bit smothered at times, although she understood why it was happening.

Elise, the daughter, had convinced her mother to allow her to accept an invitation by her Aunt Lina to come visit her on Bygone Island for a weekend. Even though Aunt Lina was possibly the only relative on her father's side of the family Priscilla could stand, Elise considered this trip to be a major victory on her part.

"Okay, let's go over the ground rules one more time before you get on the ferry," Priscilla said. "Number one?"

"Easy. Don't leave the village unless Aunt Lina is with me."

Priscilla smiled. "Good. Number two?"

"If you call, I should answer. If I can't answer, I need to have a valid reason why."

"Excellent! Finally?"

"I should call you on my own at least once a day. You shouldn't have to call me, it should be the other way around."

Priscilla let out another smile. "There we go! You're ready. The ferry should be here any minute."

As if to offset that claim, the cheap intercom system that the dock used to communicate with travelers flared to life, with a bored-sounding employee talking in a monotone, dull voice that rivaled a robot's. "Attention, all who purchased tickets to the 11:43 ferry departing for Bygone Island. Due to rough seas, we are running well behind the expected schedule. Thus, the ferry will be at least twenty minutes late, if not more. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience."

About ninety percent of the people on the dock groaned simultaneously. That meant twenty more minutes of standing in the drenching rain before they could board. Even the few who had a ticket for a different ferry (the 11:52 stopping at Star Cave Island and The Island of Smoke, for those who care to know) drummed their fingers and wore concerned expressions on their face, as the ocean wasn't getting any calmer and those islands were even further away than Bygone Island was.

For Priscilla, the ferry being late couldn't mean less. What she actually worried about was how the heck the ferry could make the long trip to Bygone Island without capsizing. She'd ridden that ferry once before- she'd gone to see Aunt Lina eight years ago, before her divorce. The entire ferry ride, both there and back, didn't convince her of its safety. No matter which direction it went relative to the sea, the thing lurched and rocked and groaned like it would fall to pieces any minute. She wound up spending most of both rides as close to the center of the ship as possible, clutching a chair (which, fortunately, was bolted to the floor) with both hands.

She snapped out of her flashback when a particularly large wave slammed into the dock at full force with a jarring crash. Luckily, the dock was made of metal and not wood, so none of it broke off, but those who had chosen a position near the end of the dock immediately scrambled for the safety of dry land.

As the rain continued to pelt down on the travelers and the wind continued its howling, more and more of them retreated to their cars to wait out the ferry. Priscilla would have done the same, but Elise wanted to stay outside to make sure she couldn't be left behind when it was time to board, and Priscilla didn't want to leave her outside alone. She had a few minutes left with her daughter before she boarded, and she wasn't yet ready to let her go.

By the time the horn sounded, indicating the ferry was close, the only people left outside besides Priscilla and Elise standing outside were three children who couldn't be any older than seven jumping around in the puddles, with their soaked mother halfheartedly trying to coax them back to the car. However, as soon as the vibrant blaring of the horn penetrated the silence, everyone still outside almost caused a stampede trying to see if the ferry had finally arrived.

Elise intently scanned the fog, trying to spot the beat-up boat, but to no avail- at first, anyway.

As she continued to stare off into the distance, at first she couldn't make out anything in the sea of fog. Then, the honk of a second horn followed, and the beat-up little ship began to become visible, bucking up and down in the madly churning waters and buffeted by gusts of wind that threw the ship sideways for several perilous seconds before it managed to right itself. It was precisely the same ferry her mother had taken eight years ago, down to the same name.

Such a sight did not make Priscilla any more optimistic that sending her only daughter on that rickety bucket of bolts by herself was a good idea. If anything, new fears clutched at her, with the small, overprotective-mother part of her brain urging her to just pull out of the agreement she's made with Elise at the last second. _"I can't let her get on that rickety old thing,"_ it told her. _"She'll drown!"_

Thankfully, the more logical part of her brain countered for her. _"Look, it's never sunk before. And you made this agreement with her, you have to stick with it."_

The ship's engine coughed and wheezed as it steadily pulled up to the dock, the captain managing to expertly pull the ship into a position that the boarding process would be as smooth as possible. Once the engine fell silent, the intercom crackled to life once more. The same voice as before was, back, saying "It is approximately 12:00 at this time. All passengers who are boarding the 11:52 ferry for Star Cave Island and The Isle of Smoke, the ferry has arrived earlier than expected- make sure to board within the next five minutes or the ferry _will_ leave without you."

Elise groaned. Priscilla silently cheered.

A young couple disembarked from the ship, their umbrellas whipping in the wind as they dashed towards the parking lot, hand in hand. No one else exited the rain-soaked ship, but plenty of room still remained so those who had tickets to board this specific ferry could pack themselves together under the roof without trouble.

Then, before the first ferry had even pulled away from the dock, a new horn cut through the silence, and a second ferry appeared on the horizon. When Priscilla caught an eyeful of it, her jaw dropped.

It looked exactly like the ferry currently waiting at the dock- if that ferry had been given a massive makeover. The stripes on the sides were a bright, cheery red, not the faded brown of the old ferry. The ship hardly rocked at all, weathering the storm without a problem. Unlike the ugly smoke that spewed from the ferry currently on the dock, it released jets of white steam that seemed to erupt into a million little rainbows before rising up to the heavens. Even the captain seemed better- instead of the grizzled, weather-beaten veteran that steered the old boat, the new captain appeared young and chipper from the view Elise was getting, and was unleashing a smile so huge and blinding that Elise could see it from the dock.

The sight of the new boat calmed Priscilla's nerves a little. _"Okay, at least she won't drown on that… I think. It looks better than the boat I took last time, I'll give it that."_

Once the boat at the dock started off with a lurch, the new boat moved up to take its place, as the intercom turned back on. "It is approximately 12:07 at this time. All passengers who are boarding the 11:43 for Bygone Island, the ferry has arrived. As always, make sure to board in the next five minutes or the ferry _will_ leave without you."

Elise took a step towards the boat, but Priscilla grabbed her arm, not ready to let go just yet.

Priscilla squeezed Elise tight, telling her, "I'll see you soon," as tears formed in her eyes. Elise hugged her mother back, quickly, then rushed towards the boat to beat out the stampede of people coming from the parking lot. Priscilla made her way off the dock to let everyone pass, and then began the walk back to her car, trying to keep her head up and her eyes away from her daughter.

A few minutes later, they betrayed her, and she caught one final sight of Elise waving her goodbye from the top deck as the ferry pulled away, heading for Bygone Island.

She watched the ferry until it was too shrouded in fog to see, then let a few more tears fall before returning to her car and preparing for the short drive home.

" _Don't worry,"_ she kept telling herself, _"it's only for a weekend. She'll be back soon."_

That thought, and that thought alone, kept her from breaking as she began counting down the hours until Elise would return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -These characters (in case you couldn't tell) are OCs. I thought it would be nice to have the perspective of a (temporary) villager, just so I don't have to constantly resort to throwaway characters. It's back to Team Sonic for a while after this, though.  
> -Thanks for sticking with me, and see you next chapter!


	3. Semantic Errors

Night had fallen, but the sky barely looked any different than it had ten hours ago.

Sonic's cottage, lit only by a couple of dangling lightbulbs, illuminated its five inhabitants with its weak rays. Tails had returned to his project, a look of utter concentration on his face as he typed frantically. Everyone else was clumped together on the couch, staring at a rerun of some daytime television program that no one could remember the name of. However, after the seventh awful pun in a row, they decided unanimously that they didn't _want_ to remember anything about it in the first place.

"Hey!" Knuckles stood up with an indignant look on his face after one of the main characters of the sitcom spouted yet another awful pun. "They stole that joke from me!"

One corny pun later, Knuckles wound up for a punch to smash the television out of sheer frustration, but thankfully, Sticks screeched and tackled him before it could come to that.

"Thanks, Sticks," Amy said. "That would've been the fourth time this year we've had to replace something important because Knuckles smashed it."

Everyone but Knuckles nodded right away. After the last incident- in which he cracked the stove in half because he burned his hand trying to cook something, and nearly caused the cottage to burn down in the process- everyone agreed to keep the appliances intact at all costs, and Knuckles made an agreement with the others that he would try to rein in his anger. And he'd done a pretty good job of it. Until now, at least.

Sonic finally did what should have been done fifteen minutes ago and turned off the stupid sitcom that was playing. Unfortunately, this just exchanged it for another, equally stupid sitcom. Knuckles stood up and left the room before he got the urge to smash the television again, which was a good thing. Once again, this sitcom was nothing more than an excuse to cram as many painfully bad puns into thirty minutes as possible.

Amy reached for the remote, and upon grabbing it, immediately flicked off the television. When everyone else gave her a look, she said, "Come on, guys. Comedy Chimp is funnier than this. When he's not performing."

Tails added "Even Sonic's Eggman puns are better than that. And I'll be the first to admit that most of those are awful."

"Guilty as charged," Sonic returned.

Tails returned to his project once more. He now typed so fast that Sonic couldn't tell his fingers apart anymore. Everyone's eyes drifted to Tails as he kept up his pace, a thin stream of salty sweat beginning to trickle down his forehead as he did. Tails didn't notice, instead choosing to mumble under his breath as he worked. Even when the others overheard little bits of what he was saying, those bits refused to make sense. All they heard were things such as "oh, I need to create a trigger for the internal wires," and "huh, why isn't the algorithm scrambler working properly?"

His mumbling, however, stopped a few minutes later, as he somehow picked up his pace even more for one final dash to the finish. He frantically entered a few more words, and then stopped, breathing heavily. Then, he pressed a single key on the computer, and let out an elated yell.

The noise caused everyone to turn their heads towards him, and they were semi-confused as to why this success had him fist-pumping and screaming "Yes!". Sure, Tails had made quite a few useful and complex programs work in the past, but their completion never caused this much celebration on his part.

"Tails, can I see what you've made now?" Knuckles had gone back to trying to sneak a peek at Tails' project.

"Sure, just let me get it running," Tails replied. Then, he pressed a couple more buttons, causing a new window to open up on his computer. However, said window failed to impress everyone else, with it just being a blank white screen.

"Okay, I need a volunteer for this part," Tails told the others. He desperately looked at all four of them, willing them to step up to the part. None of them seemed to want to. "Come on, guys! Please?"

Sonic rolled his eyes. "Alright, alright, I'll test your little doohickey. But it better not be anything like the last one." The program Sonic was talking about was a burglar alarm that Tails created a few months ago, which he decided to test without telling anybody. Sonic didn't notice it when he came home, and stepped inside without pressing the subtle button designed to turn off the alarm. Three seconds later, he found himself on the floor with several menacing knives mere inches from his face.

"I need you to do exactly as I tell you for a few minutes," Tails said. "If you do the next few actions even a tiny bit differently, it's not going to work. Please do what I tell you to the best of your ability."

"Can do, buddy," Sonic replied.

Tails then proceeded to ask Sonic to do several things, including press his finger on a pad, stare at an icon that popped up on the computer screen, speak into a microphone, and walk in a circle around the room. He complied with all these instructions, wondering what they could possibly be for. Then, after the instructions were complete (and Amy, Knuckles, and Sticks had gone to the bedroom to wait until the thing was ready) the screen finally changed.

Now, instead of the blank white screen that had once dominated the space on the monitor, instead, the screen displayed the words 'CALIBRATING FIGURE' in large, bold letters.

It stayed that way for a while. Sonic began to tap his foot with impatience. Tails' smile began to fade away. The two of them shared the exact same thought: _"What the heck is taking so long?"_

As if to answer that question specifically, about a minute later, the words on the screen changed to 'FIGURE CALIBRATED. ONE MOMENT, PLEASE.'

"Tails, I should have asked you this earlier," Sonic said, "but what's this thing doing that it requires this much information about me?"

Tails chuckled. "You'll find out in a second," he replied, gesturing to the screen once more.

The screen's display now differed from its previous state. Instead of the blank white screen Sonic had gotten used to, in that very screen stood a perfect replica of Sonic- on a smaller scale, but otherwise identical.

"Whoa. That's super cool, buddy!" Sonic clapped Tails on the back, smiling. Tails couldn't help returning the smile.

"It's like I'm looking in a mirror!" A third voice startled them all. It took another second for them to realize the voice came from the computer speakers. When the two of them investigated, they noticed that the Sonic replica was facing them, and he seemingly had his face pressed against the screen, trying to get as close to his real-life counterpart as possible.

"Another Sonic? Well, _another_ another Sonic? Did Eggman inject me with drugs again or something? Because I think I'm seeing things," the replica said from inside the screen.

"You're not seeing anything. Well, not in _that_ way," the actual Sonic replied. "Everything you're seeing is real."

"Whoa, cool!" The replica started jumping up and down like a child.

Sonic looked at Tails intently. "It can interact with everyone, too?"

"Of course it can," Tails replied. "The program essentially takes all your data, including your personality, and displays it on the screen. That thing right there is a digital replica of you, more or less."

"Wow, no wonder the program took three months to make," Sonic said.

"It would have taken longer if I didn't sink, like, four hours worth of my time into it every single day," Tails replied. "Some of those attributes did _not_ take well to being scanned. This is the first time I'm testing most of it, but every time I even tried to run the program for a while, the computer crashed. This is one of the first times it worked properly."

Sonic turned towards the bedroom, where the others sat quietly and waited to be called outside. "Hey, everyone! Come and see this! This is really cool!"

Knuckles, Amy, and Sticks all hustled out of the bedroom and crowded around the computer's small monitor. The Sonic replica's jaw dropped. "Wait, what are all you guys doing out there? You should be in here, with me!"

"That's great, Tails! I can't help but wonder what _my_ digital replica would be like," Amy said.

Knuckles gaped, sputtering out something that might have sounded something like words under normal circumstances.

Sticks just glared at it, muttering "I don't like the looks of that Sonic."

"Sticks, it's fine. You being suspicious of it doesn't mean anything anymore. You're suspicious of everything," Sonic replied. "Tails made the program, for crying out loud! You can trust him, right?"

"I guess," was all Sticks managed to say.

For the next twenty minutes or so, they all talked about Tails' new program as the Sonic replica stared at them and drank in all the sights. Eventually, they grew bored of this conversation, and decided that they wanted to see what their digital replicas would be like. However, Sonic thought otherwise, just because it was already past eleven o'clock at that point.

"Guys, it's dark out. And I don't know about you, but I need my eight hours of beauty sleep. Why don't we try this again in the morning when we have clear heads?"

Knuckles, Amy, and Sticks all nodded. They then proceeded to walk out of the cottage, heading back to their respective dwellings.

"Thanks for testing this out for me, Sonic," Tails said as he, too, began the trek home. He had forgotten his computer, but Sonic liked it better that way. He knew that if Tails took the computer home, he'd be up all night working on that project, and would be wired in the morning as a result. The last time he pulled an all-nighter, the next day he'd subjected everyone to a half-hour long, one-sided conversation about the physics of gum.

After saving the program and turning off the computer, Sonic picked it up and placed it on the wobbly coffee table, to make sure he didn't step on it or knock it over the next day. Then, he followed his own advice and trudged off to bed, ready to get some sleep of his own.

As soon as Sonic entered the bedroom, the computer, oddly enough, flared back to life once more with a series of beeps. Sonic was too tired to notice the noise.

And because he didn't notice the noise, he never saw the tiny, well-hidden line of text that appeared on the bottom of the screen.

DATA COPIED.


	4. Personal Demons

After brushing his teeth, Sonic laid down on his bed, as close to the center of it as possible.

Sonic had learned a while back that he moved quite a lot when he slept. Thus, he'd given up on trying to sleep at the end of the bed like most people, instead settling himself in the center, with a single pillow to place his head on in order to rest.

This arrangement kept Sonic from falling off the bed- for the most part- and worked especially well on nights like this because of the oppressive summer heat. Nights like these were too hot for the heavy blankets covering Sonic's bed.

Sonic, as usual, tossed and turned for a few minutes on top of the increasingly rumpled sheets as sleep resisted him for all it was worth. But, eventually, Sonic's tiredness won the battle, as it always did, and he entered the void of sleep.

For a few minutes, his mind wandered aimlessly, never settling anywhere for more than a few seconds before choosing to move on. But that refused to last, and a dream clutched Sonic in its grip soon enough.

Sonic, admittedly, dreamed quite a lot- he had good dreams, nightmares, and everything in between. He never paid them much mind, instead getting over them and turning to face the day when he woke up. Under most circumstances, that is. Tonight would prove to be an exception.

When his fevered mind settled down, it chose to deposit him in the middle of a burning field. Sonic groaned and rolled over, trying to stand up and figure out what, exactly, was going on. His body felt wet and sticky, his mouth tasted like a battery had exploded inside it, and his head pounded so badly he thought his brain might have been trying to break loose.

A deafening clap of thunder disrupted his train of thought, and caused his head to pound even harder as he took in the gruesome scene before him. The brittle, barren ground had no living plants to its name, just limp, flaming imitations of what had once been greenery. Vicious-looking black clouds dominated the sky, shooting bolts of crimson electricity back and forth at each other at a furious pace. Worst of all, though, the air reeked of a fetid mixture of waste and burning meat. And it didn't take long for Sonic to find out why.

As he tentatively took steps through the field, trying to avoid the little fires that dotted the harsh landscape every now and again, the bodies started becoming visible. And they weren't just any bodies, either. While Sonic felt a potent combination of fear and anger bubble within him after each and every corpse he saw, he began comparing them in a gruesome fashion, and came to the horrifying realization that they'd all been savagely killed. Every corpse had some sort of mutilation: a missing arm here, a disfigured face there, a heart torn free from its rib cage mere steps from where Sonic stood. Even worse, the expressions on their faces- the ones who had enough of a face left to have an expression, anyway- all shared the same emotion: pure, unadulterated terror.

Sonic lurched after that, whatever food had been in his stomach spilling out in a cascade of bile. Struggling to prevent a second wave of nausea from attacking, he tried looking at the places he hadn't seen before. It was only then that he noticed the limp, pale orange form lying about a dozen yards away. He knew something was familiar about it, but his thought remained unconfirmed until it somehow managed to stagger to its feet.

Tails whipped around to face Sonic as he took a casual step forward. In response, Tails took a nervous step back and started to whimper in fear.

"Tails, it's okay," Sonic said, in as reassuring a voice as he could use. "I'm Sonic. I'm not going to hurt you."

He took another step forward, and Tails screamed. He turned around and ran as fast as his tails would allow, shouting "stay away from me, you monster!"

All of a sudden, Sonic's gloves and body felt wet and sticky. When he looked down, all he could see was blood. Big, red, sticky blobs of the stuff covered his body and soaked his gloves, so much so that it was pooling on the smoking ground around him and giving off a deeply disturbing smell.

Then, maniacal laughter came from the heavens, which drowned out all the other sounds of the area and echoed so loudly that Sonic pressed his hands to his ears, waiting for the madness to end.

Once the laughter died down, a voice came from the same spot as the laughter, and appeared to be choked with just as much insanity. "Come on, dude! You know how much fun you could have if you just relaxed. Let loose! Don't worry about the direction you're going! Let your desires take you wherever you want to go!"

Sonic took a noticeable step backwards as he rallied his courage. "Who… who are you?"

"I'm you!" The voice cackled. When he listened closer, Sonic almost went white upon the realization that yes, the voice from above belonged to him. "I've just had the time of my life here! Moving target practice? Nothing relieves stress faster!"

Sonic managed to choke out a response. "But- but- how could you kill all these innocent people?"

"Again, They're just target practice, man!" The thing's voice had gotten even loonier than before. "And it's not my fault they're too slow to get out of my way!"

Sonic didn't respond. He just stared intently into the distance, towards where he assumed this thing was watching from, in a safe position where Sonic wouldn't be able to hurt him no matter what he tried. This thing was shaping up to have even worse "villain etiquette" than Eggman- with him, casualties were collateral damage (sometimes intentional, but most of the time not), but whatever this was focused purely on causing innocent deaths.

"You know this is what you really want to be," the voice continued. "Just relaxing, letting the wind take you where you want to go, and nothing slowing you down! You know you want this, right?

Sonic's glare intensified as he fixed his eyes in where he presumed this cheap knock-off was communicating from, somehow. The worst thing about it all was that part of him- the forgotten, impulsive, immature section of his brain- _did_ actually want that. Not having a care in the world and being able to go wherever he pleased without any constraints whatsoever- who wouldn't want that? However, the logical part of Sonic's brain overrode that same part, telling him that such pleasures should never occur at the cost of innocent lives.

"But I don't," replied Sonic. This thing was perilously close to scaring him senseless, but he tried to hide it behind a veil of humor, as always. "Not caring about who gets in the way of my objectives isn't my style. If you want that, I have some friends you could call."

Whatever the thing was seemed to mull Sonic's decision over for a few seconds, but then, it spoke again. And it was _angry._ "You know I don't have much patience here, do you? I don't have all day," it said.

"For what, exactly?"

"For this," it hissed. Sonic had no idea what he was talking about, but that quickly changed when a spear of crimson electricity struck the ground mere feet away from him. It didn't hit him directly, but the explosion it caused still sent him flying backward before slamming into the burning ground again.

Any resemblance of Sonic the thing's voice once had had vanished, and a static-choked, hissing, robotic-sounding drone took its place. It grated on Sonic's ears, even though they were still ringing from the lightning strike. "I can do things to you you'd rather not hear about," it said.

Sonic had heard this whole spiel quite a few times already, mostly from Eggman. However, the invisible creature seemed more than capable of actually following through on those desired, as evidenced by the destroyed field around them. "Has anyone ever told you that you're really creepy?"

The thing let loose a hysterical laugh that bordered on a scream. "Of course! That was my intention," it rasped.

"Well, _congratulations_ on that," Sonic said, trying to play it off with slow, deliberate clapping.

If this was even possible, whatever this thing was turned even more sinister after that line.. "You irritate me! But don't worry. I won't have to deal with you much longer. Soon, _everyone_ will know my name!"

Sonic just chuckled. "Of course they will. It's not like a million other wannabes like you have said the exact same thing before or anything."

"I'm different," it roared. "I will not let their failures control me! And unlike them, I have an ace up my sleeve they'll never see coming."

Sonic half-listened to that entire bit. "I'm sorry, what's this supposed to be?"

It answered in a single word. "You."

Sonic quickly gestured to himself with a look of surprise on his face, knowing most villains he fought just _loved_ to spoil their evil plans. Sure enough, everything he needed to know came in the next two sentences.

"Since I can't influence you like this, let's just say you won't be in control anymore," it hissed. "Soon, the person everyone will fear most… will be you!"

Before Sonic could come up with a response, violent quaking took over the world. Then, the entire world became tinged with red. Screaming once more penetrated the silence. The scent of smoke permeated the air, mixed with the smell of something burning. Sonic's vision grew fuzzy.

Then, the ground rushed up to meet his head and he blacked out.


	5. Black Magic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured that since I missed last week, it only made sense to add two chapters this week. I hope you enjoy this fic!

Sonic jolted awake with a start.

The bedroom, nothing more in the lack of light than a sea of unclear shapes, retained its usual form. Not a trace of Sonic's nightmare remained.

Sonic breathed a sigh of relief. _"Wow. Maybe I need to dial it back on the morning coffee,"_ he thought. His nightmares didn't come very often, but as of recently, they had become increasingly surreal, violent, and disturbing. However, the one he just had probably took the cake in most of those categories.

Groaning softly, Sonic rolled out of bed to see if sunrise had occurred yet. It hadn't. Not even close. In fact, the small digital clock on the wall of the living room displayed "12:56" in cheery, bright blue numbers, meaning sunrise was still about five hours away.

He decided that he could just get a glass of water and try for a more restful slumber in a few minutes, considering the nightmare he'd just had pumped him so full of adrenaline his fingers were involuntarily twitching in their gloves. So, he wandered into the kitchen, got a glass from a cabinet (and nearly smashed several more on the floor in the process) and put it under the faucet.

While waiting for it to fill, he decided to glance around the room. What he saw nearly made him drop his glass.

Tails' computer, which somehow was still on, still had the screen up that displayed the Sonic replica. However, several alterations had occurred to it that made Sonic's knees start to shake a little before he steadied himself. This Sonic's eyes were no longer green. Instead, they were a blazing shade of red. Instead of the usual cheeky smile or placid expression, the replica hungrily stared at Sonic, muttering nonstop under its breath as its eyes locked on to Sonic's own.

A trickle of cold water brought him back to his senses. He'd kept the faucet on for so long the glass had overflowed, and water now ran in streams out of the glass. Trying to act as casually as possible, Sonic turned off the faucet, shook his hand in a feeble attempt to dry it, and chugged the glass of water, putting the glass down on the counter right after it.

" _Why is the computer on?"_ Sonic scratched his head as his tired brain tried to wring out an answer. _"I powered it off after everyone left. And what's up with my duplicate?"_

So, Sonic decided to make sure to turn the thing off, and correctly this time. After leaving his glass behind on the counter, he crossed the living room and jammed his finger down on the power button with excessive force, proceeding to hold it there for about ten full seconds before finally lifting it.

The monitor went black. The computer's omnipresent hissing noise shut off. And Sonic began to make the trip back to his bedroom.

However, an earsplitting beep proceeded to shatter the silence, and the computer started glowing white once more, revealing the Sonic replica. His eyes had moved to follow Sonic, and the creepy stare he'd taken up remained.

"Okay, what the heck is wrong with you?" Sonic said this aloud, but he barely even realized it.

"Nothing," his replica quickly said, although his voice had a definite edge to it. "Of course there's nothing wrong! Why would there be?"

"Because… let's just say that I think you need to get your eyes examined. I'm pretty confident my eyes didn't look like that when I went to bed." Sonic, despite being quite unnerved, managed to keep his cool. His replica, however, remained unfazed.

"Come on, dude! This is what your eyes are _supposed_ to look like! I mean, they'll be like that in a few minutes, anyway."

While this statement made absolutely no sense, it succeeded in creeping out Sonic just enough for him to remember that he'd been trying to get back to sleep. "Look, whoever you are, I have no idea what you're talking about. But what I do know is that it's one in the morning. I'm not sure if you need to sleep, but I know I sure do, so good night."

Sonic tried to take a step away, but failed. He looked down, baffled, and then noticed something horrible. While he had been talking with his replica, a band of what appeared to be nothing more than red light had circled around his chest, and a beam of it extended into the computer monitor. Distressed, Sonic tried to hack his way through it with his hand, but all he succeeded in doing was getting his hand stuck. Now panicking quite a bit, he tried to pull his hand away, but it was just as trapped as the rest of him.

"Excuse me, but I'm pretty confident you're not supposed to be able to do that," Sonic said. While he was a little unnerved, he hadn't started panicking yet. Thus, he tried to keep his sense of humor. "As far as I know, I still don't have any 'conjure weird light beams out of thin air' abilities yet."

The replica grinned back at Sonic, just a little too widely to be taken as friendly. In a flash, what appeared to be part of a thick red rope was tossed to the replica from offscreen. After he successfully grabbed it, he said, "I was trying to keep this a surprise! It's a little thing I learned from bouncing around this computer for so long."

As soon as he finished talking, the replica yanked on the rope, hard. Sonic suddenly went flying into the counter, getting a nasty lump on his head in the process. As he rose to his feet, groaning, he saw his replica smirking at him. "Interesting, isn't it?"

Sonic didn't say anything. His head throbbed so badly that he worried he might have gotten a concussion. Not to mention, whatever was trapping him refused to yield an inch no matter what he tried. He wasn't desperate enough to risk his free hand to try and break it again, so for the time being, he was at the mercy of his replica.

The replica began laughing hysterically, like this was nothing more than a joke. "Great job, _buddy!_ You're the first to test out this thing. And clearly, it works! Now, let's see what else I can do with this…"

The replica then proceeded to pick up the rope and started spinning it around his head like a lasso. Sonic suddenly went airborne, and started spinning around in midair at a dizzying rate. A few seconds in, his head began pounding in a crescendo of pain, and he had to screw up his eyes to stop them from tearing. Not fazed in the slightest, the figure on the computer screen began to spin around and around himself, faster and faster, constantly increasing Sonic's speed until it felt like the stuffy air of the cottage was slicing him with a thousand tiny knives.

Finally, the replica had had enough of its sick game. It finally stopped spinning, causing Sonic to suddenly crash-land in the middle of the living room floor. While the jolt of pain that shot through his legs upon landing meant that he'd probably have a bruise there, but otherwise, he was unharmed by the ordeal.

When the nausea caused by his time in the air abated enough for him to risk moving again, Sonic did nothing other than look back at the computer screen, trying to see if he could read his captor at all. After realizing that he looked exactly the same as he had before spinning Sonic around, down to the same predatory grin and blood-red eyes, he realized that this guy was not going to be that easy to figure out. If he ever did.

All of a sudden, the rope shown on the monitor morphed into a pole that extended offscreen. At the same time, the red beams trapping Sonic hardened as well, leaving him unable to move the upper half of his body, even as the lower half kicked and thrashed in a desperate attempt to free the rest of him. Despite his efforts, he still remained firmly stuck.

His replica wore a dastardly smirk that wouldn't have looked out of place on Eggman. "Now, my friend, I'm afraid it's time for me to take control," it hissed, not even bothering to try and sound like Sonic anymore. "By this time tomorrow, the person everyone will fear… will be _you._ "

The voice sounded familiar to Sonic, and he made the terrifying connection a few seconds later. However, before he could say a thing about it, a stream of red mist erupted from the computer, funneling out into a dark, thick cloud as Sonic struggled to free himself from his bonds.

As if things couldn't get any more horrifying, a yawning Tails entered the cottage at that moment, blinking sleepily as he scanned the room. "Sorry to intrude this late, Sonic, but I left my-"

Then, he noticed Sonic writhing and babbling nonsense as the thick cloud of red mist hovering mere feet away from him began to enter his body. At the same time, the computer, mere feet away from both of these things, emitted hideous screeching noises that were so loud Tails feared it would burst. However, his main concern seemed to be Sonic.

Tails sprinted next to his friend's side, trying to make eye contact. "Sonic! What's happening? What's going on?"

Sonic didn't answer, instead continuing to thrash as the red mist continued to funnel into him. One particularly hard thrust by Sonic flipped him over onto his back, and that was when Tails saw his friend's bonds. He began to desperately pull at them to try and free Sonic's hands, but all he succeeded in doing was getting his own hands trapped as well.

Then, the computer monitor became visible to Tails. The replica of Sonic he'd helped create the night before had been replaced with what seemed to be his demented twin: one with bloodstained fur and teeth, crimson eyes, and claws like daggers on both hands. Even worse, its laughter was echoing out of the computer now, whenever it could produce a noise other than screeching.

The mist had almost vanished, with just a few tiny wisps remaining. As the last of it entered his body, Sonic seemed to suddenly gain back just a tiny bit of his sanity. As one last jolt caused the two of them to make eye contact one last time, Sonic leaned as close to Tails as his restraints would allow. Using whatever miniscule amount of strength he had left, he screamed a long, raw "HELP ME!"

As the last puffs of mist entered Sonic, the room went silent for a few seconds. Sonic stopped thrashing. The computer finally shut off. The laughter ceased. All was still.

Tails breathed a sigh of relief, glad that the ordeal seemed to be over.

Then, what appeared to be a wave of pure energy blasted through the room, bursting lights, knocking over furniture, shattering vases…

And then washing over Sonic and Tails, sending them both into the black void of unconsciousness.


	6. Looming Suspicions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there! For those of you who've been waiting for an update, sorry to leave you hanging.
> 
> Just so you know, this story is completed on Fanfiction.net under the account 2017tnt. I'm going to be working on crossposting just about everything I wrote in the meantime. That might take a while, but I plan to have everything done by the end of the weekend.
> 
> With that out of the way, enjoy the rest of the fic!

Tails woke up to someone shaking him.

Blinking his eyes open, his first sight was that of Sticks and Knuckles standing over him. Knuckles had both his hands on Tails, gripping his sides tightly as he shook him. Sticks didn't do much but stand over him and frown, but it was obvious that she was just as nervous.

Once Knuckles saw that Tails' eyes were open, he turned to Amy. "Amy, Tails is awake. Just wanted to let you know."

"That's great, Knuckles," said Amy, but she didn't take her eyes off Sonic as she said it. She was continually shaking him, harder and harder each time, but he still refused to wake up. "Sonic! Oh, my Sonic, please wake up!"

"Let's just leave her alone for now," Sticks recommended. Then, she bent down to stare directly into Tails' eyes.

She said, "Tails, how many fingers am I holding up behind my back?"

Tails shrugged. "How would I know? Do you think I have X-ray vision or something?"

Sticks' expression softened. "You're clear. If the government did any sick experiments on you, they'd leave you with X-ray vision. I should know. One time, my great-aunt Esther-"

"That's OK, Sticks, we get it," Tails said quickly, not wanting Sticks to lapse into yet another one of her crazy conspiracy theories. She'd already gone over two of them this week, including one about how telephones were secretly mind-control devices that were going to take over the world any day now.

"Well, now that you're awake, what happened here?" Amy asked, still trying to wake up Sonic.

At first, Tails drew a blank. But a few seconds later, memories of the horrible incident that had occurred the previous night came flooding back to him. "I walked inside the cottage to get my laptop- I forgot it here last night- and I saw Sonic just kind of lying on the floor. The computer was going nuts and there was this freaky imitation of Sonic on the monitor who was laughing like crazy. Then this red mist got inside Sonic. He was screaming for me to help him, but I couldn't, no matter what I tried. That's all I remember."

"You _might_ want to look around you for a few seconds," said Knuckles. Tails complied, and when he did, he noticed how horrible a state the cottage was in. Shattered glass objects were everywhere, from the vases full of flowers Amy had given him as a present one time to the glass from the few picture frames that Sonic had to his name. A large black mark in the middle of the floor still gave off wisps of dark, reeking smoke. The beautiful curtains Sonic took such good care of now littered the floor, adding occasional bursts of color to the wreckage.

"Amy, is Sonic awake yet?" This coming from Knuckles, who'd let go of Tails and started walking over to Sonic.

"He is not," replied Amy. She was still shaking Sonic as hard as she could, trying to jolt him out of his stupor.

So quickly that Amy could have missed it if she blinked, Sonic's eyes snapped open, and he sat bolt upright. In fact, he did this so fast that he knocked Amy over and sent her sprawling. As she hit the ground with a thud and let out a soft groan, Sonic jumped to his feet like nothing had happened.

"Hey, guys," he said without looking at them. "What's with the standing around and not saying anything?"

Tails struggled to figure out exactly what, something seemed, well, _off_ with Sonic's voice. It sounded pretty close to how Sonic normally talked, but not quite the same.

"Sonic, you were in some sort of self-induced coma for, like, seven hours," Knuckles said. "We've been trying to wake you up for forever!"

Sonic still didn't turn to face them, although he did reply. "Oh, sorry about that. I don't remember it, although there _might_ be something about going into a coma that makes you forget things."

It still didn't sound quite normal. Tails was a little nervous that the horrific incident last night might have led to some side effects, but the others (save Sticks, who was trying to figure out which of her conspiracy theories applied to this instance) were ready to just let it go and move on. Lots of Tails' inventions had backfired before, and most of them hadn't led to any aftereffects.

Then, Sonic tried to walk out the door, but Sticks moved to block the door before he could leave.

"Sticks, don't you think you're being a little excessive?" Amy tried to move Sticks away from the door to let Sonic outside.

Then, Sonic finally looked up. Whether it was by accident or intentional, none of them knew. However, that was the exact moment they realized that _maybe_ Sticks had a point.

Sonic's eyes, instead of their usual shade of green, had changed to a bloody red. The irises had become much larger, filling up nearly his entire eye, while the pupils had faded to the point that is was a wonder that Sonic could see at all. Sonic's gaze darted around the room incessantly, and when Sticks looked closely, she noticed he was practically vibrating with repressed energy.

Tails stifled the urge to faint. "That's- that's the same color as that weird mist that came out of the computer last night."

Amy felt the need to state the obvious, just in case Knuckles didn't get it. "Okay, that can't be a coincidence. Knuckles, could you make sure Sonic stays here until we figure out what's going on?"

That was when things went wrong.

Knuckles tried to grab Sonic's arm, but Sonic dashed across the cottage to get out of the way. Well, _tried_ to dash across the cottage would be a better description. His attempt caused Knuckles to grab nothing but air, but he ran straight into the sofa that took up most of the living room and was sent headlong. He crashed into the cottage wall with a nasty _thud_ , followed by an equally painful _crash_ as he hit the floor. Nearby, the television set wobbled precariously for a few seconds, before it somehow managed to right itself as Sonic staggered to his feet.

Sonic now had a swollen lump on his forehead, and was grimacing through the obvious pain as he tried to talk. "Guys, I just want to…" He paused for a few seconds, as if he'd forgotten the rest of his sentence. "Get something to eat! That's it, I just want to go to Meh Burger and get something. I'll be back soon."

Knuckles made a futile attempt to grab him again, but Sonic darted out the door, surprisingly unsteady on his feet. As the others watched him, he crashed into a fruit stand that was set up a few hundred feet outside the cottage. The thing overturned, spilling produce everywhere, but somehow didn't break. Sonic only slowed down for a second upon impact, before speeding off in the direction of the village once more.

Tails gulped. "That's not good. How are we going to catch him now?"

"Easy. We round up some of the devices we use on Eggman and go to the village," Amy replied. "He might be fast, but he didn't look so steady getting out of here."

"Sounds like a plan, but how are we going to get those? Most of them are still at my place, and we'd have to go further away from the village than we already are to get them."

Amy, of course, had a semi-brilliant solution. "Don't you keep some of the inventions that didn't work the way you wanted them to here? Because you didn't want to be reminded of your failures or something? Why don't we just use some of those? I'm pretty confident that some of them could actually be useful here."

While not exactly happy with that idea, there weren't any better options he could come up with, so he caved. "Okay, we can use them. They're in that back closet that no one ever uses."

As Amy opened the door to said closet, she had to close her eyes and mouth to keep from either choking or being blinded. The closet had so much dust in it that the stuff had accumulated in an inch-deep layer that covered the floor, as well as everything that had been left there. Among them lay some of Tails' less successful inventions: a toaster that made toast four times faster than the standard toaster (but had the unpleasant side effect of shocking whoever tried to use it with several hundred volts of electricity), the automatic vacuum (which had somehow turned evil and tried to strangle him) a supposed mind-reading device (which didn't just read minds, it also transported the user _inside_ the mind of the person who they scanned) and quite a few others.

After blowing the dust off of a few of these inventions, Tails quickly determined which ones would be most useful: a strange cannon that never launched where it was aimed, and a collection of flash grenades (Tails never figured out how to create a long delay between the pin being pulled and their going off, so the user only had a second to ditch it after pulling the pin), the vacuum cleaner (it had such strong suction that it might even have been able to slow Sonic down) and all their conventional weapons. Amy made sure her hammer was still there (even though she almost never let it out of her sight), Sticks always had three boomerangs on hand to ward off any potential machine attacks (which never happened, but that was besides the point) and Knuckles and Tails grabbed the cannon and grenades, respectively.

With their newfound weapons, they all raced towards the village, trying desperately to locate Sonic. He might have been many places, but Meh Burger probably wasn't where he was headed.

Once they reached the village plaza, they looked down the narrow streets for any trace of their friend, but there was none. Eventually, they just decided to stop one of the villagers to see if they had any idea where the heck their friend was.

"Excuse me, miss, have you seen Sonic recently?"

The woman, an elderly swan, just said, "I saw something blue headed for the beach, maybe that's him?" Then, she continued on her merry way.

Quick as a flash (but not quite as quickly as Sonic could have done it) Tails darted to the beach, hoping to see Sonic there, even though he knew Sonic wasn't really a beach lover. He wasn't there, to nobody's surprise.

However, when Tails hung his head and began trudging back towards his friends, he noticed something odd implanted in the ground. Actually, quite a few something odds. He'd stepped on one, but the rest of them were clear as day. Footprints, clearly made by Sonic's sneakers, that continued in a line that went across the beach towards the water and seemingly disappeared.

Tails, of course, radioed in his discovery to the rest. "Guys, I found something really weird. You might want to check this out."

Less than a minute later, the other three were gawking over the odd footprints. No one could figure out what the heck had just happened.

All of a sudden, Tails came to a realization. "Eggman's offshore fortress."

Knuckles snapped back into focus as he heard Tails speak. "Why's that important?"

"That's where he is. I know it. It's a straight line from the beach to there. That's the only explanation I have."

Amy looked confused. "Wait, I thought Sonic couldn't run on water."

"Not normally, because the ocean's too choppy. However, the island that Eggman's fortress is on creates a breakwater of sorts, meaning that the waves are either much lower or nonexistent between the beach and there. Sonic _can_ run across water if it's reasonably still."

"Why would he be going there now? It's not like Eggman's been doing anything."

Oddly enough, that was true. Eggman hadn't been seen outside of his fortress for weeks, which was pretty unlike him. He might have just been making another big, time-consuming plan that would ultimately fail again, but that wasn't the point. The point was, they needed to find Sonic again.

In a moment of silent agreement, they all darted towards Tails' house, knowing he kept his plane there and that they'd be able to figure out exactly what had gone wrong.

However, only a few hours later, they'd almost wish that they hadn't.


	7. Role Reversal

Even before the fortress was ambushed, Doctor Eggman was already having a bad day.

Cubot had been bothering him all day, even if it wasn't by intention. (His voice chip had started malfunctioning again, and he'd gotten stuck in 'Rebellious Teenager' mode.) Metal Sonic had made the not-very-smart decision to power down outside the day before, meaning he'd become waterlogged during the storm and still hadn't turned back on. On top of all that, he'd been suffering from 'evil genius' block,' as he liked to call it. As such, he hadn't come up with a single viable evil plan in several weeks, which was aggravating beyond belief.

Currently, the floor around Eggman was covered in crumpled-up papers, each representing some half-baked idea he'd had at some point or another. Otherwise, the room Eggman was sitting in only housed a small wooden desk, a creaky plastic chair, and a toilet. Usually, he used this room to imprison people that he'd captured, but since it was empty of any distractions, he figured that maybe he could come up with something useful in there.

In several jerky motions, he suddenly stopped writing, stared at the paper on the little desk for a few seconds, and then angrily crumpled it up into yet another ball, tossing it on the floor to join its brethren.

"Great," he muttered under his breath. "That's the thirty-sixth idea I've come up with today that isn't going to work. I'm pretty confident my brain's been fried by all these useless ideas."

As soon as he said that, he slapped himself in the face. "Good thing Sonic didn't hear that, or he'd be making that pun until the end of friggin' time."

Reasoning that maybe a snack would kick him back into gear, he left the room and began walking towards the kitchen. Unfortunately, Cubot stood- or, more accurately, floated- in his way. And he was not taking whatever he'd been tasked with doing well. As Eggman passed him, he heard Cubot muttering random things under his breath, such as "stupid grades and all this work, why the hell am I even alive if all I can ever do is this…"

"Well, you're not alive, and you never were," Eggman muttered under his breath as he passed him by.

As soon as he reached the kitchen, he opened a cabinet to get one of the many snacks stocked on the shelves. However, his quest for food was interrupted by an ear-shattering wail.

The wailing was immediately accompanied by bright red, flashing lights and a robotic voice repeating over and over, "Warning. Intruder detected on premises."

After that sentence was repeated for the sixth time, Eggman screamed, "I know there's an intruder on the premises at this point! Can you shut off that incessant babble and give me a hint about who this could possibly be?"

The system responded, mercifully shutting the alarm off, and the room became silent once more. "Request granted. Analyzing intruder now."

After a few short seconds, the voice spoke again, saying, "The intruder has been identified as Sonic the Hedgehog. Also known as The Blue Blur, The Fastest Thing Alive-"

"I get it," Eggman snarled. He started to yell for Metal Sonic to gather as many robots as he could to try and get Sonic out of there, but then remembered that he still wasn't working. Cubot was still in the middle of the rant he'd been having earlier, so instead he called for Orbot, who probably was in the middle of doing something less stupid than Cubot.

Orbot, sure enough, floated into the room as soon as Eggman's voice carried far enough. Without even stopping to breathe, Eggman told him to "get as many functional robots as possible up and running so we can get Sonic out of here," prompting him to hurry from the room to try and find the nearest ones.

However, Eggman ran for one of his latest inventions- his modified flying machine, which now had a plexiglass top to protect him from Sonic's homing attacks. It sat a few rooms away, meaning that he had to sprint the whole way in order to get there, which was a torment for the out-of-shape scientist.

It soon proved to be necessary, however. As soon as he hopped into the thing, Sonic burst into the room, a crazed look in his eyes and a wide grin on his face. Eggman slammed down the top at just the right instant- Sonic launched a homing attack into it not one second later. The impact caused the machine to shudder violently, but the glass stayed intact, much to his relief.

Sonic landed in a furry heap on the other side of the room, but sprung back to his feet in an instant. What Eggman found odd, however, wasn't his relative immunity to high-speed collisions- Eggman already knew that his homing attacks didn't injure him, as ludicrous as that seemed- but the fact that he didn't seem to be in the same battle mindset as usual. At this point in a fight with Eggman, he'd usually cracked at least three horrible jokes, at least one of them involving his name in some way. In this instance, Sonic had not spoken a word yet, and instead opted to try a second homing attack into the glass. To his chagrin, it had just as little impact as his first one.

The machine finally lifted off the ground as Sonic slammed into it a third time, knocking it almost a foot to the side but failing to break the plexiglass. As Eggman steered the machine towards the ceiling, where Sonic would have a harder time hitting him, he was treated to a panoramic view of almost every robot he'd ever created (save Metal Sonic and a couple of useless old prototypes of things) storming into the room, Orbot at the head of the pack.

Orbot's tinny voice was distorted a little by the plexiglass, but he was shouting so loudly to be heard over the cluster of machines that Eggman could easily make out what he said. "This is just about everything I could find that works! This should be enough to overpower Sonic." With that, he fled the room, allowing the other robots to do their thing.

Eggman shook his head. If he'd learned anything from his decades of battles, it was that nothing was enough to overpower Sonic, regardless of how much firepower it brought to the table. He didn't even really care about trying to beat Sonic this time- he just wanted him out of the fortress, especially since he wasn't even in the middle of executing an evil plot this time.

The robots swarmed Sonic in a storm of metal and gears, and held their ground for several uneasy seconds. For a brief moment, Eggman finally allowed himself to think that they might actually win this time.

That hope was destroyed as soon as he saw the first laser cut through the room.

Its beam pierced a hole through one of the robots before causing it to explode with a high-pitched shriek. Eggman pounded his fist against the controls of his flying machine, thinking, "Great. He brought one of Tails' inventions along with him. How was I so stupid that I didn't notice that?"

His line of thinking was proven false mere seconds later. By now, enough robots were down, all of them destroyed by these mysterious lasers, that Eggman had a clear view of Sonic. As another group of robots charged him, ready to give their mechanical lives for their creator, two more lasers caused most of them to suddenly stop working, and any others exploded. Eggman traced the lasers to their source, and then realized Sonic was firing these lasers from his hands.

Eggman's mouth fell open for a few seconds. "Wha- how-"

He didn't have time to form a coherent thought before the last few robots, now more focused on self-preservation than attacking Sonic, were destroyed. Sonic stood alone, the same grin on his face as usual, as he once again claimed a victory over Eggman's forces.

He turned to face Sonic once and for all, locking eyes with him. "Alright, you blue rat. What's the game here? I'm not even doing anything evil and you have the nerve to-"

Sonic didn't wait for him to finish his sentence, or even interrupt his monologue with a tasteless pun. Instead, he raised his palms and fired twin lasers straight at the plexiglass top of Eggman's flying machine. At first, Eggman was confident it would hold up, but a few seconds later, the glass started bubbling and warping as an awful burning stench filled the confined space Eggman sat in.

"Sonic! What the heck?" Eggman was now less focused on wallowing in the stench of his own defeat and more worried for his life. "You've won! Stop! Uncle! UNCLE!"

But Sonic didn't stop. In a matter of moments, laser burst clear through the plexiglass and hit the padded back of Eggman's seating area, mere inches away from Eggman's face. The fine leather he'd used was burnt to a crisp in seconds.

Finally, Eggman had enough sense to grab the controls and try to maneuver the thing out of the room. But, that was easier said than done. The laser Sonic had fired had damaged some of the controls, meaning the thing was hard to steer and even harder to fit out the narrow door. However, he managed it, and the machine flew down the wide corridor. For a few seconds, at least.

One moment, Eggman was sitting in the cockpit, trying desperately to gain some ground on Sonic. The next, the machine had erupted with a huge "BOOM!" and Eggman was tumbling through the air. He was not aerodynamic at all, meaning that instead of landing gracefully on the floor like Sonic would have, he crashed into the carpet back-first, banging his head on the way down. In an instant, Sonic was towering over him.

In several stiff motions, he jerked Eggman to his feet, and pinned him against a wall in the blink of an eye. That was when Eggman finally noticed several things. Sonic was vibrating with a fine tremble, like something was trying to force its way out of his body. He was also salivating like a homeless man holding a T-Bone steak, a string of pearly drool hanging from his upper lip. And finally, the green eyes he'd come to hate had been replaced with crimson monstrosities that seemed to have taken on a life of their own, they were bouncing around so much.

Sonic spoke for the first time since seeing Eggman. "You know, I could just burn your face off, and then we'd be done here. However, you're the first victim I'm going to have, so I think I'll take a little longer." With that, he moved his hands to Eggman's throat, crushing it in his grip.

Eggman's bottom half squirmed, but he was unable to kick himself free no matter what he tried- he might as well have been hitting a stone wall for all the reaction he was getting. His vision began to gray out and his struggles grew weaker as Sonic squeezed harder, and began to laugh- a cruel, hysterical noise that would have begun to chip away at Eggman's sanity if his primary focus hadn't been staying alive.

His last thought was, "That's it, then. This is how I die. How ironic."

Then something powerful slammed into both of them from the side, and he blacked out.


	8. Twisted Mockery of a Hero

Tails and the others hadn't expected to walk in on a scene quite like this.

What they had been expecting was for Sonic to be surrounded by a robot army, desperately struggling to triumph over Eggman's forces yet again. What they got, however, was far more sinister.

Sonic had been forcing Eggman against the wall, his hands around Eggman's throat. Even though methods of killing had never been specialties for any of them, the thing he had been trying to do was obvious.

Even though Sonic had never tried to murder Eggman before, the others instantly knew that it was going to happen if they didn't act, whether Sonic meant to do it or not. And that's when Knuckles finally managed to use his head. Even if it was in a literal sense.

While ramming into Sonic head-first at full speed probably wasn't the smartest idea he could have come up with, it was still effective enough to cause Sonic to lose his grip on Eggman and go skidding back several feet. Eggman, clearly too winded to say a thing, slumped to the floor, the lights in his eyes going out as he did.

Once Sonic sorted out his pounding headache, he turned to Knuckles, eyes hard as pebbles. "Dude! What the heck? Couldn't you see I was about to get rid of the biggest thing standing between this world and peace?"

"There are other ways to do it than that, Sonic," Tails said sternly.

"Of course!" Sticks started screaming at the top of her lungs. "There's so many options! Electrocution, tying him to a tree and leaving him there, dropping him in the middle of a pool filled with hungry piranhas…"

Amy cut her off. "Sticks! Not helping!"

Sticks rolled her eyes. "Sheesh. Never mind."

Sonic clenched his fists, crimson eyes jerking about in their sockets. "So that's how it has to be, then. If you're helping him, that means you're a threat to the peace of this world as well. Meaning, _you're going to die along with him._ "

Normally, the gang would suspect that Eggman had taken over Sonic and using some kind of mind controller to control his actions. However, Eggman was unconscious, meaning that probably wasn't it. Metal Sonic could have been doing that as well, since he was programmed to execute Eggman's orders. However, Metal Sonic wished to destroy Sonic, not make him his ally, so that wasn't a real option either.

Which left only one choice. Everyone had been hoping that it wasn't the case, but all other feasible scenarios had been proven wrong.

Before they could despair, however, Sonic charged up a spin dash, and then tore for Knuckles, leaving behind a trail of ripped-up red carpet and shards of what had once been floor tiles.

Knuckles took several quick steps to the side, even though Sonic's aim was a little off, meaning he likely would have missed Knuckles anyway. He managed to screech to a stop before making a beeline for Amy, with even less accurate results. Amy moved to the right anyway as a precautionary measure, but there was no way he would hit her with the accuracy he had been displaying so far.

"Why are you resisting this? You know your morality dictates that anyone who is a threat to this world should be disposed of," Sonic said.

"Yes," Tails admitted, "But we're not killers. There's a difference between what we do and what you're doing. Why don't you see that?"

Sonic didn't answer, instead flinging out his hands as if to protect himself from some invisible threat. However, in seconds, they started to glow bright crimson.

Sticks stared at him, her mouth hanging wide open. "What the-"

Her statement never got finished, though, as red beams shot out of Sonic's hands. They weren't aiming at anyone at first, but he rapidly swiveled around, aiming for Tails' legs.

Amy saw it first. "Tails, jump!"

He managed to jump at just the right time and saved his legs as the lasers scorched a line of destruction into the floor. He took flight, but Sonic wasn't finished yet. He kept moving his hands, trying to burn Tails to a crisp, as he desperately flew around the enclosed space, trying to avoid his approaching fate.

Sticks delayed it a little longer, though, by producing a boomerang from who-knew-where. With expert aim, she chucked the thing at Sonic and proceeded to hit him squarely in the back of the head. He lost concentration for just long enough for the lasers to seemingly "power off," as they stopped working _just_ as the fur on Tails' back started to become singed.

This, unfortunately, turned Sonic's ire toward Sticks, who couldn't fly like Tails could. As Sonic's focus returned, the lasers flickered for a second before turning back on again, as he swept his hands to aim right for Sticks. The killer beams scorched a black into the wall, but Sticks darted in the opposite direction, trying to buy a few seconds. However, Sonic's hands moved a lot faster than her legs, meaning the deadly beams were catching up quickly.

However, it turned out Sticks was just bluffing. In a move that stunned everyone, she turned 180 degrees in only three steps before hitting the floor and sliding for all she was worth. Sonic angled his hands down to try and catch her, but he was a split second too late, and wound up hitting nothing but the tiled floor.

This gave Knuckles an opportunity to ram him again, this time from the back. Sonic's lasers shut off again as he went flying several feet. Unfortunately, he twisted himself in midair so that he landed on his feet, meaning that Knuckles had bought them a few seconds at best before he charged up again.

Amy threw her hammer, but Sonic ducked, causing it to pass harmlessly over his head. Tails took off again and tried to get behind him, but Sonic wasn't fazed. Instead, he stared up at his former friend for a second before firing the lasers again, this time trying to use both his hands independently. His left hand made Tails to touch down to avoid being baked, while his right caused the other three to scatter.

While the others prepared to counterattack, Sonic suddenly switched off his lasers. One second, he was slumped over, panting a bit, like he'd narrowly escaped falling off a cliff. The next, all they saw of him was his back as he shot into a room on the far side of the hallway.

"Come on, guys," Tails yelled, "He's trapped himself in there. Let's end this while we have the chance!"

He quickly darted towards the room Sonic had entered, the other three hurrying along behind him.

"Wait a second… have you guys not seen any horror movies? One of the most important rules is 'never go into a confined space with the bad guy!'" Amy shouted at them even as they hustled out of the hallway and disappeared from view. "Are you guys even listening to me?"

She didn't hear an answer, but what she did hear was metallic clanking behind her, growing louder by the second. Before she could turn around and see where it was coming from, familiar metallic arms wrapped around her torso, dragging her into a position she remembered and despised as her heart caught in her chest.

"Amy Rose, Ally of Sonic the Hedgehog, spotted," Metal Sonic said, beginning to drag her down the hall as she vainly tried to kick her way free. However, instead of running off with her, like he had the last time, he strode up to the cowering form of Eggman. He had regained consciousness since the last time Amy had seen him, but had done nothing of note but curl up into a ball, too scared to even try and run.

Metal Sonic leaned down, throwing Amy over his back, to look Eggman in the eyes. "Doctor Eggman, do I have permission to destroy Amy Rose, Ally of Sonic the Hedgehog?"

Eggman coughed several times, a spasm rocking him each time. "No, not now. Focus… focus on Sonic, and Sonic only. He tried- tried to kill me."

Metal cocked his head. When it came to eliminating Sonic's many allies, the word "no" was so foreign to him that he may as well have been addressed in Latin. However, he was programmed to follow orders, not much more. "Yes, sir," he replied, dropping Amy on the carpeted floor right in front of Eggman as he began his search for Sonic. As soon as he landed and Metal Sonic went off to look for Sonic (in the wrong direction, mind you) Amy grabbed her hammer and hustled for the side room the battle had moved to.

It didn't take long to figure out where he was, either. As Amy began to hurry to join her friends, she saw Sticks suddenly get launched out the door, but like some kind of gymnast, she managed to have her feet hit the wall first, then push herself back the way she came before landing lightly in front of the door. As she dashed back inside, Amy tried to follow as Metal Sonic shot past her, entering the room nearly as fast as Sonic had.

The room was relatively empty if you discounted the nasty brawl going on inside- it looked like one of those padded rooms they put suicidal hospital patients in. However, bodies were flying in every direction, and with Metal Sonic having just entered the fray, things were only getting crazier.

Tails had apparently fired up the failed vacuum cleaner, and was using it to try and suck Sonic into it somehow. However, he was so fast that even a pull as strong as that one wasn't helping much, and Sonic wasn't stopping for long enough periods of time for Tails to even aim properly. Not helping was the fact that he had to keep an especially firm grip on it to make sure that _he_ didn't get sucked inside the thing.

However, Metal Sonic was proving to actually be trying to help them for once. He couldn't perfectly mimic Sonic's homing attack yet, but he was coming pretty close, as he managed to land two hits on him, one as Sonic was charging up a spin dash and the other in midair, as he tried to perform a homing attack on Tails.

When Sonic took that second hit, he seemed to finally "break," per se. Instead of snapping back to battle mode like he'd done every other time someone had attacked him, he took several seconds to get back up. However, when he did, he appeared to sink back into a concentrated state as his hand glowed a vivid red once more.

"We can't have him firing lasers, not in here!" Amy was getting panicky, and for good reason. Sonic stood between them and the exit, and if they touched those lasers, they were toast, literally.

Before he could finish, however, Sticks saved the day. She'd been wielding her boomerang almost the whole fight, but since they were almost useless for hitting a moving target, she'd only thrown it once so far. Now that Sonic was standing still, he finally made a decent target, which he found out when the boomerang smashed him in the face. The red glow around his hands vanished as he moved his hands to the side of his face, groaning.

Knuckles, taking advantage of Sonic being distracted, ran up to him from an angle, then grabbed his legs. Sonic tried to bring back the lasers, but Knuckles grabbing him and throwing him over his shoulder dispelled any fears of that happening.

As Sonic writhed and thrashed, Knuckles whispered in his ear, "No hard feelings, buddy. But this has to be done."

Then, he chucked Sonic across the room, watching as he ungracefully soared through the air before crashing into the padded ground and rolling to a stop. However, he began to rise quickly, and probably would have retaliated had Tails not come up with a brilliant idea.

The vacuum cleaner he wielded now had two settings, even if he'd only ever used one, and he figured that now was as good a time as any to test the second one out. As Sonic finally got to his feet, Tails flipped the switch on the vacuum cleaner to change the machine from its default "suck in" setting to its "blow out" setting. The effect was immediate.

A blast of air rocketed out of the device, blowing Sonic into the back wall, where he crashed into the wall before crumpling into a heap. However, the recoil caused Tails to be launched backward, where he was blown out the door and into the hallway before colliding with the charred wall that had once been part of a stately hallway. The jolt caused him to let go of the vacuum, which kept going, even with no one holding onto it, skidding down the hallway until it hit a cracked tile that had been caused by Sonic's lasers. Then, the thing soared up and into the ceiling, where it proceeded to crash, promptly turn off, and then plummet to the floor, where it disintegrated into a smoking mess of metal, wires and gears.

Tails started entering the room, but Metal Sonic had rushed out, and was blocking Tails from re-entering. "Tails the Fox, this room is designed to contain creatures similar to Sonic the Hedgehog. Therefore, we are trying to trap him in there. Your allies are attempting to aid me."

Sure enough, Sticks and Amy raced out of the room as Sonic began pulling himself to his feet. By the time Knuckles had escaped, he was on his feet. He bent his shoulders slightly, got into a good running stance, and then dashed across the room for the door, madness in his eyes…

Right as Metal Sonic and Knuckles slammed it shut, leaving Sonic trapped inside. Sonic couldn't stop in time, and crashed into the door with a deafening _bang._ It vibrated a little, but stayed in place, much to everyone's relief.

Then, there was total silence. Nobody said a word or moved a muscle for several seconds.

Even though no one there was talking, it was pretty easy for them to come to a consensus, even with Metal Sonic in the mix.

The Sonic the Hedgehog that they knew was gone.


	9. What You Don't Know...

If you ignored the persistent pounding on the door as Sonic struggled to break out of his prison, everything was quiet.

Part of it was due to the fact that the ever-present blowing of the fans that circulated air around the facility had vanished, since Tails' vacuum contraption had damaged that system. However, most of it came from the utter shock of every being in the hallway.

There was no way around it; Sonic had tried to kill them all. And in the case of Eggman, he had nearly succeeded. If the others had arrived even a few seconds later, they'd be sharing the hallway with a corpse.

Eggman had finally snapped out of his stupor, and staggered over to join the others, who sat with their backs against the wall, right next to the room Sonic was trying so desperately to escape. Just to make the point clear, he asked the others "What the heck's gotten into Sonic? I know he can go a little bit crazy at times, but I've never seen him do anything like that. Also, since when can he shoot lasers out of his hands?"

"Since about five minutes ago. I have even less of an idea than you do," Amy replied. "He was acting strange when we woke him up this morning, but I didn't think 'acting strange' equated to 'turned crazy and violent' in my mind."

Metal Sonic, oddly enough, was the next one to speak up. "I might be able to piece together what has happened, but first, I need an explanation as to what has happened recently."

Sticks pulled herself to her feet. "Come on, guys! Are you really going to give all this information to a machine? You _know_ what happens when machines get information on you! They do _things_ to you! And you don't want to know what those things are!"

"As much as I'd like to agree with Sticks, considering who we're talking to here, Metal Sonic has a point," Tails responded. "He has just as much a chance of figuring out what's behind this as we do."

Then, he started talking to Metal Sonic, not caring one bit about censoring any of the details. "Well, it started last night, when this weird thing happened with the computer I use-"

"Can you present it to me?" Metal Sonic cut Tails off.

"Not right now, it's back at Sonic's place. Should I go back and get it?"

"How about we all go?" Amy, as usual, became the voice of reason. "That way, we can _all_ figure out what happened, and keep an eye on Metal Sonic to make sure that he doesn't try anything fishy."

Sticks was not pleased, but there wasn't really another option, so she caved in. "Fine. But don't expect me to tell you any secrets!"

"I never needed to know your secrets, Sticks the Badger," Metal Sonic droned.

Tails led the way out of the room, with everyone else following. A shell-shocked Eggman was about to bring up the rear, but Metal Sonic managed to talk him into staying behind. "Doctor Eggman, this is your residence. Isn't it your duty to keep it safe? Also, we need someone to warn us if Sonic the Hedgehog- or the entity masquerading as Sonic the Hedgehog- escapes."

He was far from happy, but he couldn't deny Metal Sonic had a point. Besides, Eggman got it into his head that he needed some defenses, deciding to arm himself with a few of his latest weapons once he was out of everyone's sight line.

The five-person brigade hurried for Tails' plane, leaving Eggman alone. As soon as they were gone, he abandoned the door and headed for his cache of weapons.

Thus, he didn't notice when the horrific pounding against the door finally, finally stopped.

* * *

It took some time, but the other five got back to Sonic's cottage without a hitch.

While some of the villagers gave them odd looks, considering Metal Sonic was both with them _and_ not trying to beat the crap out of them, that was as far as the oddities went. Sonic hadn't really stopped in the village on his way to try and murder Eggman, so the place was still relatively calm- the shoppers trying to enjoy the break from the rain while it lasted, the vendors working their colorful stands, and Meh Burger selling its beautifully average burgers from the plaza.

The cottage still looked the same as always, except for two things: Tails' computer was still running the program from last night on the nightstand, and the television was facing an odd angle.

"I'm pretty confident it came from the computer," Tails said. "The thing malfunctioned and let out a lot of this weird red stuff last night. I just want to know what this thing is so we know what we're up against."

Metal Sonic took in the information. "Affirmative, Tails the Fox. I will scan the computer, promptly."

Metal Sonic made an uncanny whirring noise before a large square of metal popped off of his chest, revealing the wires and electronics underneath. Among other things.

"The device I need is the red cable," Metal Sonic said. "Would one of you kindly retrieve it from my chest cavity?"

Knuckles made a move, but Tails slapped his hand out of the way. "Sorry, Knuckles, but you're really not the one for the job here. Your hands are so big that you'd probably break a ton of wires without needing to. I could technically fix him, but that would take time, and who knows if I could do it right?"

Knuckles growled, but retracted his hand, allowing Amy to test her luck at it. Managing to snake her arm around the wires without touching any of them, she pulled her arm out with a red, coiled-up cable that appeared to be about five feet long. One end clearly attached to the USB port of a computer, while the other presumably attached to somewhere on Metal Sonic.

He uttered, "Stand back," and proceeded to plug the fat end of the cable into a hole in the back of his head, which was exposed by another square of metal falling off of him. Then (with a little help from Knuckles) he plugged the other end into the computer.

For the first few seconds, nothing happened. Then, all hell broke loose.

Metal Sonic started spasming like crazy, arms and legs blurring into a tangled mess. One struck the fixed-in counter and almost came right off, held on merely by the wiring. In tandem, the screen started flashing like crazy, and the others became pretty confident they could hear something laughing.

"What are you waiting for, unplug him!" Amy said this while stumbling backward to avoid being knocked over by Metal Sonic. Knuckles ran over to the computer and proceeded to yank out that end of the thing, nearly knocking the computer off in the process. Luckily, it worked- the laughter stopped and Metal Sonic's thrashing became less and less prominent until it finally stopped.

After Metal Sonic shakily stood up, he began talking. "This should be obvious, but that is not my normal reaction to being plugged into a computer."

Tails nodded. "I _hope_ that's not your normal reaction. Imagine how much high-tech equipment you could destroy by doing that!"

Metal Sonic ignored him. "Normally, connecting myself to a computer like that allows me to download and process its raw data. However, this computer appears to have a virus preventing me from doing so."

Tails nodded. "We're listening. Did you get any information about this virus?"

"I collected some information about it before the connection between us was terminated. There are a few things you must know about it."

Amy interrupted by saying, "Well, then tell us those things!"

"This was originally a normal computer virus. For unknown reasons, it has become sentient and taken over this computer. Therefore, I could not access any of its files. Tails the Fox, since this appears to be your computer, do you have any… complex programs on here?"

"Actually, yes," Tails said. "There was one I completed last night, it was supposed to…" He trailed off for a second as he pieced together what probably happened. "It was supposed to create a digital replica of the person it scanned."

"I'm assuming this program requires information on the part of the person being scanned?"

"Yes, it does. It needs to see their eyes, walk cycle, body, and fingerprint, and it also needs to hear their voice. This, along with some other things the program does for you, creates the replica."

Metal Sonic shook his head. "Based on the information you have given me, the likeliest scenario is that the computer virus took this information and used it to corrupt the replica Sonic the Hedgehog, which in turn used that program you mentioned to allow it to manifest inside the real Sonic the Hedgehog. There are alternative theories, but all of them suggest that this virus is responsible."

Amy's face lit up into a beaming smile. "That's great, actually! We can just destroy the computer somehow, and this will all be over."

Knuckles grabbed the computer and raised it above their head to smash it, but was interrupted with a shout of, "DON'T DO IT!"

He turned, expecting to see Tails distraught about his life's work being destroyed, just like that. However, it turned out to be Metal Sonic doing the shouting. Tails was surprisingly calm, all things considered.

"If you destroy the computer now, it _will_ destroy the virus along with it. However, Sonic the Hedgehog will likely die in the process."

Amy's mouth dropped open. "Okay, let's not destroy it yet. It might just be me, but I want my Sonic back. I'm not sure how we'll keep going without him."

Knuckles, however, came up with the obvious question. "Why'd he die if we kill this thing?"

"Because this 'thing' has control of Sonic's mind, getting rid of it may render him brain-dead. I am not quite sure how consciousnesses work- a flaw I hope to correct if we are to save Sonic the Hedgehog- but the little knowledge I have suggests that getting rid of this hostile entity without forcing him out of Sonic the Hedgehog first will not work the way you think it will."

Sticks shook her head. "How are we getting this thing out? Do we need to perform an exorcism or something? I've got a Ouija board at home, if that helps."

Metal Sonic did not like that. "Such foolishness is not necessary, Sticks the Badger. However, we would need to get the entity to abandon Sonic somehow. Perhaps Doctor Eggman has a device that may aid us."

Knuckles was not convinced. "What, does he have some kind of mind-sucking thing that allows us to take his brain out and clean it or something?"

"Knuckles," Tails said, "I have no idea what kind of gizmos and gadgets Eggman has stored in those dusty old rooms. Metal Sonic might know some, but we wouldn't know until we looked."

Amy smiled. "Well, let's go do that!"

Tails took a minute to lock the computer in Sonic's safe to make sure some knucklehead didn't try and steal it, and the five proceeded to exit the cottage. Everything seemed to still be normal. The village center was still full of color and life. People still carried on with their everyday activities. Even the sun had joined in on the festivities, the clouds fading to nothing more than an occasional streak of white.

Tails still had a question, though. "This isn't an insult, so please don't take it like one, but why do you suddenly care about Sonic's well-being?"

"My life's goal is to prove myself superior to Sonic the Hedgehog, Tails the Fox," Metal Sonic stated. "How am I to do that if he is dead?"

As they began to climb into Tails' plane, all of them were prepared for an uneventful return back to the island.

They were never expecting what came next.


	10. ...Can Still Get You Killed

Sonic, or at least the thing that was possessing him, had appeared to have calmed down somewhat.

The crashing against the door had stopped, and he wasn't saying anything, leading Eggman (who still stood there, wanting to know if this thing escaped) to believe that he had either given up or was asleep. Either worked for him, because that meant the risk of him getting murdered was much lower than it had been two hours ago.

Come to think of it, Eggman was getting pretty tired himself, even though it was only the middle of the afternoon. The hallway where he was standing didn't have any windows, and the light fixtures were kept dim during the day to save money. (I mean, how can you be an evil genius if you can't even pay your electrical bills? Sure, that was probably low on the list of the village's priorities regarding him, but the money has to come from _somewhere._ )

He didn't want to nod off, though. Not when he was locked in the same building with a monster that could kill him in a second.

The thoughts he'd just had might have jinxed it, but as soon as they came out of his head, the banging started back up again, only this time it seemed a bit further away than normal.

Then it picked up again, softer this time. Then again, even softer. Then again… well, you get the picture.

It took Eggman a few rounds of this to realize the obvious, but when he did, his breath caught and his heart gave a jolt. That banging couldn't possibly be coming from the room Sonic was trapped in! He was escaping!

Foolishly, he hadn't given Team Sonic any way to communicate with him in case this exact thing happened. However, he'd already built a portable machine allowing him to convey orders to Metal Sonic, so there _was_ a way to get in touch with them, it was just far less efficient. Either way, he had to get to it fast _,_ because there was no way he could deal with this _thing_ on his own, especially since Sonic had destroyed half his machines and most of his robots.

Unfortunately for the doctor, this meant more sprinting. And, again, he wasn't exactly a track athlete.

However, halfway to the room where he'd kept the thing, his sprint was rudely interrupted by a ceiling tile falling and breaking into pieces mere feet from where he was running.

It might have been that he was out of breath, or because he was merely curious, but he screeched to a stop for a second after it shattered. Then, he stared up where it once had been.

When he figured out the cause, he started bolting again. Several more of the tile's brethren joined it moments later, followed by the distinct smell of burning carpet and melting metal.

All he could think, however, was _"Almost there almost there almost there almost there…"_

A light thud signaled that Sonic had hit the floor, but Eggman was not there to see it, instead having entered the side room where the communication device was kept. He didn't dare use it now, though- the last thing he needed to do was make noise and attract Sonic's attention.

One second passed. Then another. Then another. Nobody made any noise. Eggman forced himself as far into a corner as he possibly could.

A sudden whishing sound proceeded to cut through the silence, and Eggman saw a flash of blue for a few milliseconds before it disappeared down the hall. Eggman counted to twenty- three times- to make sure he was out of earshot, then grabbed the communication device and turned the thing on.

With a loud screech, the thing burst to life, and Eggman was left to wonder how panicky he was supposed to sound here.

* * *

Tails' plane had just taken off and was over the beach when a piercing beep erupted from Metal Sonic.

He covered his mouth (like that was going to do something), but the noise kept going. After about thirty seconds, it finally cut off, replaced with Eggman's voice, or at least the tinny version of it that appeared to come from somewhere in Metal Sonic's chest.

"Everyone, Sonic escaped! He managed to get into the vents somehow and got into a hallway. Get back to the island, now!"

Tails stiffened. Amy nearly fell out of the plane. Metal Sonic just shook his head.

"Why are you not more concerned about your own safety, Doctor Eggman?" It was a fair question, if nothing else.

"He passed me by, and if he was looking for me, I'd think the noise I'm making now would be enough to attract him," he replied. "If he gets to the village unopposed, even _I_ don't want to think about what would happen."

"Good point," Amy said. Then, she turned to Tails. "What are you waiting for? Turn the plane around!"

"On it," Tails said as the plane dipped to one side. He began to execute the simple 180.

However, halfway around, a sudden wind kicked upwards, sending the plane into a wobbly spinout. Tails fought to regain control for several terrifying seconds as the plane bucked and pitched, and everyone else gripped the sides, each other, or anything they could to make sure they didn't fall over the edges.

Knuckles whipped his head around, and whether it was by accident or an intentional maneuver, he still was the first to figure out what happened. "Uh, guys? Sonic beat us there."

"That doesn't matter," Tails replied. What _does_ matter is that we stop this thing before anyone gets killed!"

With that, the plane began falling towards the ground at a rapid rate, preparing for a hard landing on the beach.

Everyone could conjure up ideas of what was going on, none of them were pleasant.

* * *

Lina- Elise's Aunt Lina, to be exact- had gone to work that morning to find her fruit stand essentially destroyed.

Like, the thing looked like it had been hit by a train. The display of fresh fruit she'd worked tirelessly to keep neat had been knocked to the floor and picked at by wild animals until everything edible was gone. The stand itself wasn't much more than a pile of splintered wood and ripped fabric, and even the hand-painted sign had been snapped in two.

Unbelievably, she hadn't thought much of it, assuming the storm had kicked up the night before while she was asleep. However, she failed to notice that none of the wood or fabric showed any signs of water damage, and that if the storm had been that bad, her stand wouldn't have been the only one destroyed. (She'd passed several on the way to her own stand, and despite several of them looking far more rickety than usual for some reason, they were all intact.)

She'd resigned herself to fixing the thing that morning, and patched together the stand the best she could with what she could find (namely, duct tape and some nails she bought from another stand). Now, the thing was finally operational, and she could actually devote the rest of the day to selling fruit, as opposed to making sure she'd actually be able to.

It was now just past noon, and she had decided to take a well-earned lunch break. Yesterday, Elise had met her here, and they'd gone to Meh Burger. Today, she was expecting everything to be just as straightforward.

She was wrong. Dead wrong.

It didn't seem that way at first. At fifteen minutes past noon, Elise came bounding up to the stand, phone clutched tightly in hand and smile stretching from ear to ear. "Ready to go, Aunt Lina?"

"Of course, Elise."

Elise, unlike last time, led the way, with Aunt Lina having to take two steps to match one of Elise's leaps. It didn't take long for her to leave her aunt behind, turning a corner and vanishing from sight.

This part of the village was pretty empty, so she was the only person in the area. Sure, clusters of hem dotted the plaza about five minutes away, but all the houses here were dark, and everything was near silent, save for the crickets.

That was true until the first house collapsed.

The thing was perfectly stable one moment and toppling the next. Fortunately, it crashed to the ground well away from Elise and Aunt Lina, but they were spooked nonetheless. It didn't take a genius to figure that houses didn't fall over for no reason.

A few seconds later, the air filled with creaks, screeches, and groans again as a second house fell over. By now, the entire area was coated with bits of rubble, and the two of them decided that maybe they should head for the plaza just a _little_ faster.

However, when a figure dropped from the sky and blocked Lina's path, she realized that something was definitely off.

The thing resembled Sonic the Hedgehog (she'd seen him a couple of times in town, even if the two of them didn't cross paths very often), if Sonic had been designed by a person who wasn't right in the head. He twitched constantly, so that he looked like he was moving even when he was standing still. The white gloves he always wore had ripped, exposing scarred fingers and nails that had been bitten to the beds. Even creepier, his eyes had turned a disturbing shade of crimson, and seemed to be moving independently from each other.

Aunt Lina didn't know whether to smile or run screaming. "Uh, sorry for being in your way, I'll be going-"

"No need," the thing that resembled Sonic said. "You won't need to go anywhere in a minute."

Before Aunt Lina could process what he meant, a shattering blow hit her in the side and sent her careening towards the plaza. She hit the ground hard, head slamming into the sun-baked dirt. She attempted to stagger to her feet, but Sonic was there, once more, a demented smile taking up his face.

"That was fun! Let's do it again," he said.

With another powerful blow, Aunt Lina was sent flying again, this time with blood trailing behind her. As she careened through the air, she started screaming, which didn't stop until she smashed into a tree, head first.

A sickening crack sounded throughout the area, followed by more screaming. Aunt Lina was no longer sure if it came from herself, having gotten a nasty concussion from the tree. However, even though her vision was swimming and her mind was foggy, she could still make out two blobs coming towards her.

One was Elise, who was screaming something unintelligible at her, and the other was the Sonic-like feature that had been terrorizing her.

The creature took its attention off of her to focus on Elise, who was kneeling by her, trying to say something. All Aunt Lina could think was, _"No, not her too!"_

She tried to warn Elise, but her mouth didn't want to form words no matter what she tried.

Elise was so focused on her, she didn't even notice the other creature advancing towards her. However, he became noticed pretty quickly when he ran full-speed into Elise, the same way he had presumably done to her. Elise went flying out of sight, screaming the whole way. Aunt Lina didn't see her land, but that might have been a mercy.

Then, the thing stood over Aunt Lina, seemingly ignoring Elise for the time being. However, he'd lost none of the malice he started with.

He pulled out a sharp shard of glass from his sleeve, fingering it while he moved in. As he leaned down to stare directly into her eyes, he said two words, so loudly that even through her horrible concussion, she could still decipher them.

"Night night."

Then, it viciously slashed downward, stabbing Aunt Lina through the stomach as she screamed and gurgled in pain. She saw the thing dash off, but that was all she could make out as her eyesight began to fade away.

Then, Aunt Lina was left slumped in a pool of her own blood, the first casualty of a war she didn't even know had started.

She was the first to die at the hands of this monster. Unfortunately, she would not be the last.


	11. Riot in the Streets

Metal Sonic had lost track of the thing possessing Sonic.

It wasn't like the thing had gone straight to the village- that was the first place Metal Sonic had been, trying as best as he could to stay hidden from the villagers. (Sure, he was trying to help them this time around, but how were they to know that without seeing the actual threat?) The last time he'd come into the village, even though it was with no evil intentions, one of the largest and heaviest villagers that Metal Sonic had ever seen tried to body-slam him. (It didn't end well for either party.)

He was led in the right direction by a scream coming from the woods outside of the village. Most of the villagers noticed it but chose to ignore it, figuring Sonic and his friends would deal with it if it got really bad. Even though that was as far as possible from what was going to happen.

Metal turned a corner, snuck behind several of the larger structures and through an alley to avoid the prying eyes of the villagers, then moved as fast as possible towards where the noise had been coming from.

He didn't have to go far. One second, he was charging through the woods, the next, he was flat on his back, tangled up with something furry.

The furry thing was not Sonic, but a teenaged lioness with a horrified expression on her face. It only worsened when she pulled herself to her feet and saw exactly who she had collided with.

She broke into a run again, still screaming. Metal Sonic considered just letting her be for a second, but that option was eliminated when he saw a flash of blue streak through the trees, clearly after her.

Metal Sonic, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that that was Sonic, closed the gap between the two of them as fast as he could, following the screaming sound. However, after a few seconds, the screaming suddenly cut off.

Knowing that couldn't be a good sign, he pushed his machinery to the limit, entering a small clearing a few seconds later. What he saw, had he not been a robot, would have scarred him for life.

Sonic had pinned down the screamer from earlier, who, while still alive and conscious, had fallen mute. Her eyes seemed to shift independently and at random intervals as she struggled to get up, and she was clawing and slashing with her left hand, which Sonic hadn't managed to catch and pin yet. Sonic, however, merely grinned at her with bloodstained teeth and crimson, soulless eyes as he tried to force a shard of glass down towards her neck.

Metal did the natural thing: he crashed into Sonic as fast as he could. The impact did throw Sonic off of the girl, but it had two unpleasant side effects. One, instead of landing in a heap like Metal hoped he would, he twisted around in midair to land neatly on his feet. Secondly, he'd nicked the girl as well, and while it didn't cause her any lasting injuries, he did leave a scape on her arm that started to bleed, adding to the list of fresh injuries she had.

The girl ran for the village, probably hoping to find something to hide behind. Not like that was going to stop someone with abilities like Sonic. Metal was pretty confident she had no idea whether or not she was supposed to fear or try to hide behind him, so she'd run simply on instinct.

Wordlessly, Metal Sonic did what he had been built to do: attack Sonic. As Sonic- or the thing in his body, anyway- chased after the girl, Metal Sonic followed, doing everything he could to throw him off the trail. It didn't work, no matter what he tried- he bought the girl a few seconds with each attack, but unless some sort of miracle occurred, she was on borrowed time.

Then, the chase cut through the same alley that Metal had just snuck through to avoid detection, landing them smack dab in the middle of the village. The girl kept running, screaming her lungs out and generally drawing quite a bit of attention, but Sonic paused for a few seconds, even as the girl disappeared inside a hut.

Metal launched another attack, but it was batted aside, sending him crashing into a produce stand. The elderly swan staffing it gave him a look of utter disdain, and then picked up a large tomato.

Even as he was hit with the first tomato as he slowly pulled himself upright, all his attention was focused on the Sonic impostor.

He whipped his head around a couple of times. Licked his lips. Then, his face contorted into a gruesome smile.

Thankfully, as he quickly scanned the other end of the village, he was treated to a hopeful sight- Tails and the others moving towards the two of them at a dead run, presumably armed to the teeth. However, it just wasn't going to be enough to stop him.

Sonic said a single word. "Yes."

Then, he charged for the nearest villager.

* * *

Tails and the others only caught a glimpse of their former ally before the first blood was spilled.

The impostor's first target was a woodchuck, who had nonchalantly been eating at Meh Burger only a few seconds ago. He yelped and tried to dodge, but Sonic moved too fast, too unpredictably. He was knocked backwards at least two dozen feet from the blow, and hit the ground hard with an audible release of breath. An instant later, Sonic had jerked him to his feet, snapping the poor man's neck with a brutal twist.

That was what finally caught the villagers' attention for good. Fortunately for them, they had enough experience with life-threatening scenarios that they had an idea of what to do. However, this led to all-out pandemonium.

They ran every which way, most of them screaming. Some curled up into the fetal position and started whimpering. Others froze in place, not moving a muscle or even breathing, hoping that the monster would spare them.

Sonic's next target, an ancient stork, was rammed into from the side. She collapsed like a puppet with the strings cut, clutching her broken leg, before Sonic finished her off with a stab from a hidden sharp object. After that, he smashed into the form of a fleeing rabbit, causing him so much internal damage he immediately began puking his guts out. He only managed to make it about ten feet further before Sonic hit him again, causing him to keel, face down, in the hard-packed dirt.

Before he could get any farther, Metal Sonic managed to perform his imitation homing attack, knocking him off balance and sending the both of them crashing into a table, flipping it. Both were on their feet in an instant, but the attack had bought just enough time for the villagers to clear the plaza, with a few exceptions. Of course, the dead villagers weren't moving anytime soon, but a few still curled up under tables, obviously scared out of their minds.

Sonic tried to bullet past his metallic counterpart but failed. Metal's good craftsmanship showed here, as a full-force attack from Sonic barely even scratched his paint job.

The others tried to help. Amy charged in with a hammer while Sonic was still getting up from the previous attack, but Sonic jerked his head out of the way before she could make contact, and was back on his feet again in moments, forcing Amy to leap out of the way to avoid being grabbed. Sticks threw one of her boomerangs, but it missed, soaring past Sonic's right ear. Knuckles hoped that he could be the one to smack some sense back into Sonic, but when he tried to punch Sonic in the side, his first punch was dodged and his second was almost casually blocked, with Sonic not even wincing. Then, Sonic started charging up a spin dash, leading Knuckled to gulp heavily and scurry out of the way.

Then, Metal launched himself into Sonic again, knocking both of them to the ground. Their brilliant combat strategies devolved into a wrestling match for a few seconds, and at first, Metal Sonic was on top.

"Do not worry," he managed to say while trying to hold a wildly thrashing Sonic down. "I should be able to-"

What he was able to do was never found out, though, as Sonic threw a punch of his own at Metal Sonic's eye. Robots couldn't get black eyes, but the punch had so much force behind it that it damaged several of the mechanisms that kept Metal Sonic running smoothly. Both his eyes blinked out for a few seconds before turning back on, albeit a little darker than before.

Metal paused for a second, seemingly trying to regain his bearings after his brief shutdown. However, a second was all Sonic needed. In that second, he'd tossed Metal Sonic aside and made a beeline for the nearest villager, who was rocking back and forth under the table like a child.

Thankfully for the villager, said table got in the way. While it didn't stop Sonic from hitting the villager, it slowed him down just enough that the villager was merely knocked backward, as opposed to being sliced in two. The sudden jolt caused him to come to his senses and run for his life, and at that point, Amy had retrieved her hammer in time to whack Sonic hard in the side of the head. He barely winced, but it was enough of an attention grabber to allow the villager to find shelter inside one of the nearby huts.

Unfortunately for Amy, that meant she was the next target. Quick as a flash, Sonic knocked her sprawling with a vicious two-handed shove. She landed hard on her back, gasping for breath, while the others tried to retaliate. Tails, Knuckles, Sticks and Metal Sonic tried to hit him in turn, but Sonic either dodged or blocked each of their attempts at hitting him.

Amy staggered to her feet, but she looked stunned and weak. Her hammer lay at her feet, but she looked like she could barely pick the thing up. She took a couple of uneasy steps forward, but then collapsed to her knees, wheezing and exhausted.

Sonic smirked, trained his gaze on her, and suddenly his hands started glowing red again. The others all knew what that meant. Knuckles rushed for Amy and began to pick her up, while Metal Sonic charged Sonic from the side, but all the other two could do was scream a silent _no no no no no_ …

Before the laser beams erupted from Sonic's hands.

And singed their way into Knuckles' back.

He let loose a horrific screech and leapt sideways, carrying a feeble Amy with him. Sonic tried to stay with him, but the lasers' movements were too precise for him to easily control them while they were moving, and he wound up sending them straight over Knuckles' head. He tried to course-correct, but by then, Metal Sonic had crashed into him on his right, shutting off the lasers and sending him flying, similar to what he had just done to Amy.

Unlike Amy, who had landed on her back, Sonic landed on his face. The painful crunch he made when he hit the floor wasn't pretty, but the expression on his face as he stood back up and turned to face the others was even worse.

His crimson eyes blazed with pure hatred, while his mouth was locked into a freaky snarl that lacked a few teeth. His quills were messy and intertwined with quite a few leaves and blades of grass, and his nose leaked with slow drips of blood, even as the nose itself was broken, and badly.

He held up his hands again, but they didn't glow red this time. After spitting out some vicious curses (amongst some blood and mucus), he began to talk, even as Metal Sonic charged at him for another attack.

"This isn't over," he roared, dodging Metal Sonic's spin dash in the process. "I will exterminate you, no matter what it takes. And when I do, you're going to be begging for it by the time I'm done with you."

At that, he charged into the woods surrounding the village, Metal Sonic chasing after him. The other three hoped Metal Sonic could capture him, but they knew Sonic would do anything to keep his word, even while corrupted.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, Metal Sonic came back empty-handed. "My apologies, Team Sonic minus Sonic the Hedgehog, but Sonic has evaded me once more. His fate remains unknown."

Tails looked half disappointed that his former best friend would be able to cause more destruction and despair before he was finally stopped, but half relieved that if anyone caught him, it wasn't Metal Sonic. "Not your fault. You can't do everything."

"I wish I was capable of anything, Tails the Fox, but such a feat remains out of my grasp," Metal Sonic replied.

The three fighters in decent condition turned to Knuckles and Amy and were dismayed to see that the former was barely conscious, wobbling back and forth on his knees, while the latter was clearly out of it.

Tails surveyed the scene with tired eyes, and his face fell further every second he spent looking at the results of their brawl.

"Sonic possessed, Knuckles and Amy in various levels of agony, and from the looks of it-" he gestured to the field, where several of the fallen still had not gotten up, looking increasingly unlikely that they ever would- "at least three deaths. All because of some stupid, stupid idea that I had. If I hadn't written that program, none of this would have happened."

"Tails, do not-"

"And don't pull the 'don't blame yourself, you didn't know this would happen' card, either," he spat. "I should have known nothing good would come of this before I ever started it."

Sticks and Metal Sonic looked away as Tails broke down in tears. Tears for his former best friend, for Knuckles and Amy, for the dead, for everyone this monster was going to hurt or kill while it terrorized the village.

The others left Tails alone to deal with his emotions for a minute, but once he managed to calm down a bit, they had to get back to business.

"Now that Knuckles and Amy are hurt, how are supposed to fight this thing?" Sticks looked exceedingly nervous. "We could barely fend him off with all of us! What happens if he comes back tomorrow and Knuckles and Amy aren't ready yet?"

"Reinforcements for our team would be useful," Metal Sonic added. "Do you two know anyone who could be of use fighting Sonic?"

It took a little while, but a lightbulb soon went off in Tails' head. "This might sound crazy, but I think I have a good idea," he said quickly. "Metal Sonic, I think we can get in touch with reinforcements now."

"How?" Sticks wanted to know what Tails had in mind.

Tails spilled the beans. And his response left everyone surprised.

"Metal Sonic, do you know how to call Shadow?"


	12. Make a Phone Call

Shadow the Hedgehog was bored. More bored than usual, anyway.

He always felt the most alive during a mission. His nerves would be set on edge, every maneuver he made had to be done with the utmost care, and he could rely on no one but himself. Even in a seemingly hopeless scenario, or a mission that ended in failure, it always left him feeling slightly more satisfied than whenever he was sitting still.

Yet, that was exactly what he was doing right then. Rouge and he were sharing a cramped apartment smack dab in the center of some sprawling city Shadow had forgotten the name of. He never bothered. All they were were temporary locations that he'd wait until the next mission.

A sitcom rerun was playing on the battered television, even though neither of them was interested in it. Leftovers from breakfast were still on the wobbly table, even though neither of them was hungry (and they were well into the afternoon at this point). It looked like they'd simply lost the will to _do_ anything.

That notion shattered into a million pieces as soon as the bulky phone that plugged into the wall rang.

It was a whining, piercing noise that would have sent most people diving for cover. However, it caused both Shadow and Rouge to immediately dart for it, desperate for something to break up the monotony of that day. Sure, all of the last three calls had been spam, but it was slightly better than sitting around, doing nothing.

Shadow swiped for the phone, but missed, allowing Rouge to grab it off the wall. With a cheeky smirk on her face that made Shadow growl, she brought the device to her ear. Pitching her voice much deeper than usual, she said, "Hello, who is this?"

"Rouge, quit playing games! It's Tails. This is important!"

Sure, Rouge was taken aback that Tails had managed to trace her to this tiny apartment that even she didn't quite know where it was, but she had to keep her composure- and her sense of humor. "What's the big deal? Did Sonic ditch your guys' night out again?"

"Worse! He's gone nuts and started killing people!"

Rouge's smirk fell right off her face, and she trembled slightly for a few seconds before calming down again. "Is this supposed to be a joke or something?"

"Ha ha ha, yeah, it's so funny, Sonic's just murdered a couple of villagers and we have no idea where he is," Tails replied, poisonous sarcasm dripping from every word. "Does that sound like a joke?"

"Okay, okay. I'll admit that sounds pretty bad. So, what are you calling us for? And how did you find us in the first place?"

Before Tails could answer, she was interrupted by someone screaming, "Tails! I told you those machines would take control of your mind if you used them! Here, I'll save you!"

Rouge nearly dropped the phone as the sound of a scuffle, punctuated with screaming and grunts of pain, erupted out of the speaker. After about fifteen seconds of this, there was a triumphant "Gotcha!"

Just as quickly, whoever had the phone now started screaming into it, causing Rouge to actually drop it this time. "Hey! Whoever's behind this evil scheme, your sick game is up! I know exactly what's going on and I-"

Then came the sounds of _more_ scuffling, followed by Tails yelling, "Knuckles, can you try to hold her back?"

Apart from some grunting by whoever just had the phone, the noise level had dropped considerably by the time Tails regained control. "Sorry about that. That was my friend, Sticks. She thinks that just about all technology that exists is evil."

Rouge smirked for a fleeting moment before becoming serious again. "Same questions, if you remember them."

"First, Metal Sonic had the number for Shadow's employer- whoever that is, sorry I forgot- and when we called them asking for him, they redirected us here."

"Wrong order, but okay then," Rouge said. "And the other one?"

"We need you to come here and help us take down Sonic. And the rest of Team Dark, if that's possible."

Rouge dropped the phone a second time. Before she could pick it up, Shadow snatched the thing from where it was hanging and started talking. "I remember that the last time we met, I said I would return to fight Sonic on _my_ terms. This, well, isn't my terms."

Rouge was confused about how he'd picked up so much of the conversation, but Shadow mouthed out "Tails talks really loudly," before Tails responded.

"Come on, Shadow! You get to go on a mission and give Sonic payback for what he did to you last time! Is what you're doing now really that much better?"

"We're not really doing anything right now," Shadow said. He took a quick glance around the apartment, making sure that there wasn't anything else to do that was better worth his time before answering. "We're in between missions, but we might get called back in a few days. Also, it's just going to be Rouge and me- Omega's not with us right now."

Tails sounded confused. "Something happen to him?"

"He'd gone ahead as a scout on our last mission- we had to infiltrate someone's base and retrieve some fancy high-tech thing that had been stolen from the government. He got a little too close before he could jam the cameras, someone saw him, and they threw a bucket of water on him to short him out before trying to dismantle him."

"Trying?"

"He didn't get very far before Rouge and I took him out. Long story short, Rouge managed to snag our objective and we got the hell out of there with Omega. He's currently being repaired- whoever tried to take him out screwed with the code before trying to take him apart."

Tails sighed. "That doesn't sound fun. Are you two coming? And how soon?"

"Hold on a second," Shadow said, before letting go of the phone. "Rouge, I'm going to Bygone Island, mostly because now I have an excuse to beat Sonic a whole new face. You coming with me?"

Rouge nodded. "What the heck."

Shadow picked up the phone again, saying, "Yes, the two of us are coming. And we'll be there in the next couple of hours, depending on where we are and when the next ferry there is-"

"Wait!" Tails shouted this so loudly that Shadow almost dropped the phone to clasp his hands over his ears. Tails followed this up with a stream of muttered curses. "Oh, how did I forget that?"

"Forget what?"

"We can't have a gigantic boat just come to Bygone Island! I'm pretty confident the main reason Sonic hasn't headed for the mainland is that there's so much water in the way. If it gets there, Sonic's going to take control of it, and then bad things happen." Tails then proceeded to quickly mutter under his breath, "have to find a way to stop the ferry from coming…"

"Well, okay then. No ferry." Sure, Shadow could get there with a snap of his fingers, but even though Rouge could technically fly there, it'd be very tiring for her.

"Besides, you can teleport and Rouge can fly! Why did you want to take the ferry in the first place?"

Shadow growled a little. "Do you think flying for twenty miles minimum over water is easy? You of all people should know that it isn't, Tails. And teleportation, while it may not seem it, is extremely painful- it feels like getting ripped into a million pieces. And of course, there's always a risk of creating a _tiny_ rip in the space-time continuum that could destroy life as we know it."

"Okay, then," Tails said. "Finally, I have one last request. We don't want any more deaths, meaning we need to get the villagers out of here. Is there a way that you can get that set up _without_ using a boat?"

Shadow though for a couple of seconds, and then the metaphorical lightbulb in his head lit up. "My employer works for the government on the mainland, he probably can get them to send a helicopter over. We might only be able to get one or two, though. We saw a lot of them leave for a mission that got assigned yesterday- some crazy weapon everyone's been calling 'The Big Boom' needs to be transported across the country from one base to another."

"So," Tails said, "If I'm getting this right, you're going to get a helicopter or two, have someone bring it over here with you on it, and then start helping us track down Sonic?"

"Check, check, and check," Shadow replied. "Rouge and I should be there in a few hours."

He hung up the phone then, a somber look on his face. "Rouge, we need to call-"

"I know, Shadow," Rouge cut him off. "Just like you said, Tails talks really loud. But I'll handle the sweet-talking from here. We all know you aren't exactly the most persuasive of people."

Shadow barely responded, choosing to move to the bedroom to prepare everything before Rouge worked her magic on their employers.

Just like that, the odds weren't so impossible anymore.

* * *

Priscilla waited nervously by a phone of her own, desperately wanting it to ring.

Elise should have called several hours ago at this point. Her first call, yesterday at around six o'clock, had been light, friendly, and full of nothing but her buoyant optimism. However, every second that passed before her second call was made caused Priscilla's thoughts to get darker and darker.

The clock appeared to slow. Every second felt like much longer. Priscilla graduated from sitting still to nervously pacing around the room. What could possibly holding Elise up? Had she just lost her phone? Had she dropped it in the ocean? Or, even worse, was she hurt?

_Tick…_

_Tock…_

_Tick…_

_Tock…_

Finally, right as Priscilla was about to start wailing like a prisoner locked in solitary confinement, the phone started ringing.

It didn't even finish its first ring before Priscilla snatched the thing off the wall, almost ripping it free in the process. "Elise? Is that you?"

There was a several-second gap in between her question and the response, but whoever was on the line said, "Yes," and Priscilla had to squeeze her eyes shut to stop herself from crying.

"Elise, I was worried to death about you! Why didn't you call me when you were supposed to?"

Silence. However just a few seconds later, Elise started sobbing, hard, into the other end of the phone, and couldn't stop no matter what Priscilla tried.

"It's okay, you're not in trouble, I was just so worried-"

"Stop," Elise said, with a sudden firmness that shook Priscilla. "This has nothing to do with you or this call."

"Well?" Priscilla, unsurprisingly, had gotten confused. "Then what is it?"

Elise's sobbing came back in full force, but she managed to choke out the four fateful words. "Aunt Lina… she's dead."

Priscilla clenched the phone tightly in her hand. Kept it that way for a few seconds. Then, her hands went slack, and the phone dropped towards the floor, stopped only by the extension cord. She stood perfectly still for just a moment, only the thinnest semblance of restraint keeping her from breaking down just like her daughter had.

Just like that, one of the two people who had kept her sane these past few years was gone forever. And the other was currently separated from her by forty miles of ocean.

At the very least, she had to be coming back soon. The ferry bringing her home was supposed to arrive in a few hours.

"There's more I need to tell you," Elise said after an indeterminate period of time.

Her voice weak and trembling, Priscilla picked the phone back up again and said, "Is it more bad news?"

"Unfortunately, yes. _Really_ bad news. I'm stuck here until further notice. The ferry that was supposed to be here this afternoon isn't coming."

Priscilla nearly threw the phone into the wall. "Wait, _what?_ Why?"

Somehow, that started up Elise's flood of tears again. However, words still came out between sobs. "There's… there's a big threat… on the island. Apparently, the ferry… the ferry was canceled to make sure… that it can't… get to the mainland."

Priscilla stiffened. "So, they trapped however many people on an island with a threat, just so it can't take a big, slow vehicle that can easily be stopped. How does that make ANY SENSE!?"

Elise's voice quieted so much that it was almost impossible to hear, but she continued on anyway, Priscilla struggling to decipher the words. "Because… Sonic the Hedgehog's gone rogue."

The phrases _Sonic the Hedgehog_ and _gone rogue_ fit together in Priscilla's mind about as well as cupcakes and pickle relish. (She had that experience firsthand, being dared as a child to eat a cupcake with pickle relish on top instead of frosting. She won the dare, then proceeded to throw up immediately afterward.)

"Elise, have you been drinking? Because this story of yours is making less and less sense."

Her sniffling kept up. "Mom, do I _sound_ drunk? He- he- he killed a few of the villagers. And Aunt Lina… she was one of them."

Priscilla's breath caught, and suddenly her heart seemed to stop beating as everything around her shut down. She'd never seen Sonic in the flesh, but his heroics had made the evening news plenty of times before. All the good feelings she had for him was replaced with nothing but vicious hatred. She didn't know what was happening, or what had caused Sonic to break. All she knew was that he had murdered one of her close relatives, and seemed perfectly capable of doing it again to someone even closer to her.

Suddenly, Priscilla's stream of thoughts was interrupted when Elise said, "Sorry, Mom, but the entire village is gathering in the plaza for some reason. I have to go."

Priscilla gulped, hard, now having to stifle the urge to both break down crying and start swearing loudly for letting Elise out of her sight, even for a weekend. Because she'd let her go on this trip, now she was stuck with a violent threat and no way to leave. All she could say at this point was "Stay safe. I- I don't want to lose you."

"I'll call again when I have more details," said Elise. "Hopefully, I'll be… I'll be home relatively soon."

Then, the line went dead.

Finally, Priscilla allowed herself to break down. Tears began to slip down her face, shameless, frustrated, terrified tears, as her legs gave way from under her and sent her leaning against the wall.

Maybe the sun was going down. Maybe dinner needed cooking. Maybe she needed to get some sleep. But none of that mattered to her now. All that mattered to her now was Elise, and Elise was gone.

Priscilla was terrified, she was deathly worried for Elise, and worst of all, she was alone.


	13. An Emo and a Psycho

The entire village had gathered in the plaza, but apart from the remnants of Team Sonic and Metal Sonic, none of them had any idea why.

Doctor Eggman remained at his base for the time being, having sent a message after Sonic's attack that he would join them as soon as he'd set up an automated defense network. That way, Sonic wouldn't be able to break into his base again, at least in theory.

However, the team members that had arrived quietly detached themselves from the crowd, making sure that most of their spectators were facing in their general direction before starting to talk.

Tails started off, yelling, "I would like everyone's attention," in his most stern voice possible. Sure, it wasn't that imposing, but it got the job done just fine. Pretty soon, he had several hundred pairs of eyeballs facing his way.

"In case you don't know…" Tails' voice broke, and he had to swallow several times before he could finish his sentence. "...Sonic's been possessed by an evil entity. We don't have much idea as to what it is or how it did that, but all we know is that Sonic is considered a high-level threat at this time."

The villagers began to shout questions, but Tails managed to make himself heard over the cacophony of voices, shouting, "We'll have time for questions at the end! I just need to give you some important information. One: the ferry will not come to this island until further notice. However-"

Someone cut him off, screeching, "So you're just leaving us here to die?"

"No! Of course not," Tails countered. "That feeds into my second point: we're going to run an evacuation procedure, starting as soon as a helicopter gets here. Unfortunately, there's no way we can get you all off the island in a single run, meaning we'll have to fairly decide the order in which you all will be transported to the mainland."

He started to say more, but then he was interrupted by the faint sound of a helicopter in the distance, growing louder by the second. Tails stopped talking and turned to look, and everyone else presumably did the same thing.

The helicopter was painted an inky black and had no symbols or letters on it to display who it belonged to. There were no windows to look in, so it was impossible to tell who was flying the thing, but Tails was reasonably confident he could trust Shadow and Rouge, heavy emphasis on _reasonably_.

Thankfully, his idea as to who was inside the helicopter was just about confirmed when it settled into a steady hover above the island. After a few seconds of waiting, one figure hurtled out the open door of the helicopter, and a second quickly followed.

The first figure opened a parachute, a dark contrast to the sunny blue sky. The other needed no parachute, instead just opening her wings.

Rouge touched down daintily in the center of the plaza, smiling and blowing kisses like she was performing for the crowd. Shadow landed a short time later, nowhere near as graceful as Rouge. After his unsteady landing that brought him to one knee, Rouge snickered a little, causing Shadow to give her a murderous glare.

When the villagers saw Shadow's face, most of them gasped. A few started running away as fast as their legs would carry them, having recognized him from his battle with Sonic some time ago.

"Wait!" Tails shouted this as loudly as possible, trying to prevent mass pandemonium breaking out for no reason. "He's on our side this time!"

Most of the runners stopped. A few, however, kept going, probably not feeling safe until there was a solid wall between them and Shadow.

Sure, if Shadow actually wanted to attack them, that wouldn't do much, but it was the thought that counted.

"Greetings, fellow- whatever you call yourselves," Rouge started. "We've been called here by what's left of Team Sonic. They have advised us of the threat you are up against, and that is why we've brought a helicopter here."

The helicopter hadn't landed, fortunately enough. If it had, a stampede might have broken out at that very moment. As it was, there was some pushing and shoving to move a bit closer to it, but no full-fledged fighting yet, for which Tails and the others were glad.

"However," Rouge continued, "The helicopter only seats about forty at a time, not counting the pilots. Tails, how many does your plane seat?"

Tails piped up. "Four. I can take four at a time. And it's called the Tornado, just so you know."

Rouge rolled her eyes. "Why, thank you for that completely necessary tidbit at the end, Tails. The point I'm trying to get across is that we _are_ going to evacuate all of you off the island, by any means necessary. However, we cannot take everyone all at once. Based on the population of the village at the time, which is…" Rouge trailed off, evidently not sure of a good estimate.

"It's about three hundred fifty," someone yelled. Rouge had no idea whether or not that number was accurate or if the person yelling it was even trustworthy, but she didn't really care.

"Meaning, even if we use Tails' plane _and_ the helicopter, it will take at least eight trips, approximately, to get everyone off the island and onto the mainland. We need to decide who goes first as fairly as possible. This is why our friends up above-" Rouge stopped and pointed to the helicopter- "have brought along a little something to help." After saying that, she craned her neck up to look back at the helicopter, and began to wave her arms wildly, screaming, "Send it down!"

Shadow then yelled, "We need about a ten-by-ten square to make sure this doesn't kill anyone. So back up and give them some space!"

The crowd promptly obeyed, giving them the space needed and then some. A few seconds later, a large brown package was thrown- or pushed, due to its size- out of the plane.

It fell to earth with an earsplitting crash, thankfully in the zone that had been cleared out. The simple brown box looked dented, but not broken. It didn't have a label or any other indicators as to what it might be, but when Sticks opted to step forward and open the package, it revealed two simplistic devices: one appeared to be some sort of ticket generator- a bulky, brightly colored monstrosity with a label screaming "CLAIM YOUR RAFFLE TICKETS!", and the other was just some digital-looking thing with a blank screen and a single button painted a vibrant shade of blue.

"Here's the deal," Shadow yelled, getting the crowd's attention pretty quickly. "We're going to need everybody to get in an orderly line, and you're all going to take a ticket, as in one, and only one. Each ticket will have a number printed on it, from one to… whatever the number of villagers is. Once everyone has a ticket, we're going to draw numbers at random to see who's coming along with us on the first trip, and we'll do so for every trip after that."

Tails whispered to Rouge, "That's the best you could come up with?"

Rouge simply responded with, "We were on short notice. What the hell did you expect, bingo?"

The crowd only hesitated for a second after that statement. Then, suddenly, everyone surged towards the ticket-spewing machine, threatening to sweep Tails and Shadow, the only people standing between the crowd and the machine, off their feet. Tails, not too keen on that outcome, took to the skies, but Shadow took a different approach, instead grabbing the machine and speeding away from the crowd as fast as possible.

Once he came to a stop on the other side of the plaza, Shadow yelled at the top of his lungs, "Cool your jets! Everyone is getting a ticket, and a low number doesn't increase your chance of getting picked early!"

Rouge fluttered over to his side, and began shouting, "Everyone, get in a single-file line! We've all gone through kindergarten at this point, you should know what that is by now!"

That had very little effect, the crowd just charging after the machine again, leading Shadow to run away with it again. This game of keep-away continued for about fifteen minutes, at which point most of the crowd was too tired to try and keep up anymore.

"Well, I don't know what that was for, but it worked well enough," Tails said.

"We're just trying to slow the flow of people," Shadow said. "Now they're coming at a manageable rate. I got Rouge and Sticks to start handing out tickets."

The formation around the ticket dispenser resembled just about anything _but_ a line, but Sticks and Rouge could keep up nevertheless. Rouge worked the machine, cranking out tickets as fast as she could, while Sticks grabbed fistfuls of them and passed them off one at a time, all the while screaming nonsense interspersed with bizarre conspiracy theories. At one point, she said seriously, "If someone you know just had a baby, watch your back! A little birdy told me that babies will be taking over the world any day now!"

Tails and Shadow had tried to help, but Rouge and Sticks had shooed them off, claiming they had everything under control. Not really true, but with a crowd as desperate and large as this, this might have been as close to 'under control' as it was going to get.

All they could really do was stand back and watch the chaos.

* * *

It took what felt like forever for Elise to get her ticket.

The crowd hadn't really been shoving and screaming, since they were too tired after chasing the ticket dispenser to do much of either, but it was still a disaster trying to grab a ticket. Elise wished, not for the first time, that she was a few inches taller- at least then she'd be able to reach over the masses and possibly extract herself a little faster.

As it was, by the time she finally got a ticket, it was just a small strip of green paper with the number '278' labeling it. When the crowd finally broke up and the last ticket had been handed out (labeled '364') Tails picked up the other machine, fiddled with it for a minute or so, and then turned to face the crowd. "Listen up, everyone! If your number gets called, come and stand by me! If you're part of a family, and one of your family members' numbers are called, all of them come and stand by me!"

Shadow added, "We have data on what each family is supposed to look like, so don't try to pull a fast one on us! It won't work, _and_ I'll make sure you're the last to go!"

Elise stared at her ticket, willing her number to be called so she could escape the island. Tails finally got around to calling the first number.

"175! I need number 175 up here!"

Some kind of bird, a little older, probably female, gave a shout and bounded to the stage, dragging a little kid and her male counterpart- presumably her husband- to stand by Tails.

More numbers followed, but none were hers. The crowd by Tails grew larger and larger, until finally, Tails shouted, "We're out of space! Everyone else is going to have to try for the next run! You four-" he pointed at a family of lizard-looking creatures with two _very_ young children- "You're with me! Everyone else, you're getting in the helicopter!"

The helicopter had settled into a hover about thirty feet off the ground, and suddenly, some sort of metallic contraption began to feed itself out the side.

Someone in the crowd yelled, "What the heck is that thing for?"

"They're retractable stairs," Shadow said. "What, did you think everyone was just supposed to teleport into the helicopter?"

The stairs slammed into the ground, and those nearest to Tails funneled towards them, pouring inside until the last few people barely could squeeze inside. The stairs folded up again, the doors slammed shut, and whoever was flying the helicopter began to steer it back towards the mainland. Alongside it, the bright yellow streak that was Tails' plane followed behind it.

Both of them grew smaller and smaller until Elise could barely see them, then vanished.

Elise quietly sat down on one of the few intact chairs in the area, staring off into the sunset.

It seemed like all she needed to do was wait for a few hours- eight at most- and then she'd have a golden ticket out of this nightmare.

Unfortunately, doing that would not be so simple.


	14. One Very Bad Trip

The flight back to the mainland had been fairly uneventful.

Both the helicopter and the plane had touched down at a small airfield that was hardly ever used anymore since a bigger, newer airport had recently been built. All the passengers except the pilots got off, said pilots ran a few routine machinery checks to make sure that they weren't going to stall over the ocean, and they took off flying once more, heading back for the island.

Tails felt much better than he had a few hours ago. Sure, those casualties were still dead, and there was nothing he could do to change that. However, now he was taking steps designed so that nobody else would die because of the monster posing as his best friend in the world.

The island was several hours away from the mainland by boat, but only about half an hour by helicopter, so time wouldn't be too big of a problem. In fact, Tails probably could have flown his cargo to the mainland in about half the time, but he'd wanted to pace the helicopter to keep the evacuation somewhat orderly.

Soon, the island was in sight again. Tails let a smile sneak its way into his face for the first time in hours.

That was before the pain began to rip through his skull.

It was as if someone had shoved a boiling javelin through his brain. His eyes watered, his nose ran, and he began to cough violently, a deep, percussive noise that shook his whole body. Tails gritted his teeth, trying not to scream, one hand now on his head like that would somehow ward off the agony. The other hand was reserved for the controls, which suddenly he couldn't keep steady anymore. One second, the plane dove sharply, nearly causing him to plunge into the ocean. The next, he'd suddenly pulled up and left, nearly crashing into the helicopter's skids in the process.

Then, Tails gave in to his urges and started screaming, and the pain doubled as if it could hear him. It was all he could do not to crash the plane. He would have thrown up, but he'd been such a high-strung wreck that he hadn't eaten anything for hours.

Suddenly, he felt himself falling. Everything became tinged with a sickly shade of red.

A few seconds later, the world disappeared, and there was nothing left but an endless sea of black.

* * *

When Tails came to his senses again, he couldn't move.

It felt like he was lying flat, but there was no ground underneath him, so that didn't really matter. His arms and legs were together- legs extended to their full length, arms above his head- and his tails were pressed tightly against his back. He could blink and he could breathe, but that was about all he could manage for the time being.

He tried to say, "Where the heck am I?" However, his mouth refused to move, and it just came out as meaningless gibberish.

After what couldn't have been more than a minute or so but what felt like much longer, Tails' restraints loosened enough that he could sit up. However, when he tried to stand, something invisible pulled taut at his waist, keeping him in place.

Still, he could get a better hold of his surroundings now. Not that there was much to see. No matter which direction he turned, there was nothing but a black void on all sides, lit only with a trace of a reddish glow.

"If this is hell, everyone back home sure got a lot about it wrong," Tails said to himself.

Before he could come up with any other ideas, the muted red glow of the room became blinding in an instant. One second, Tails had to squint to see anything, the next, the light was so blinding that even though he was able to move his hand over his eyes and look away, it seemed to burn through the back of his head, painting the inside of his eyelids the color of blood.

Just as quickly as it had started, it died down. Most of the light faded in the blink of an eye, leaving the room barely any brighter than it had been before the flash. Tails risked opening his eyes again and turning back around, revealing that the source of said flash had decided to make himself known. When Tails saw him, he cried out in a combination of fear and horror, trying to turn away again, but found that the thing holding his waist in place had extended to his head, meaning he couldn't look at anything else, despite how much he desperately wanted to.

The creature in front of him vaguely resembled Sonic, if Sonic had been designed by a murderer locked in an insane asylum. A large number of his quills were missing, and those that weren't were either partially torn off or pointing in a direction they should not have been able to point. His fur was so messy and tangled it looked like something had been nesting in it. His formerly white gloves were torn to shreds, hanging limply from scarred, bloody hands, and his shoes were so ragged that it was a miracle they didn't fall off then and there. Worst of all, though, was his face- mouth filled with jagged teeth that dripped blood and stretched into a grotesque smile, nose smashed in-

And his eyes. Or _lack_ of eyes, for that matter. His eye sockets were still there, but nothing initially seemed to reside in them except for some dried blood. However, as soon as Tails made eye contact with the creature, a sphere of ruby light flared on in each of the cavities, trying to make it seem like something was there, but failing miserably.

Then the creature began to speak, its voice a mangled, metallic-sounding screech. "How cute. Just because I'm not right next to you, you think you're safe."

Tails' first thought was to figure out what Sonic would have done here. He guessed he probably would have made a snarky comment that _whatever_ this was needed a makeover, but now was not the time for stupid jokes. Thus, he decided to try and face the threat head-on.

"We can say the same about you," Tails said. "Soon, you won't be able to harm anyone ever again."

"And you're wrong," the creature hissed. "I'm not going to let you or your pathetic group of friends stop me. It shouldn't even be hard, considering I can do _this._ "

In an instant, pain surged through Tails' body again. The agony from earlier still reigned far superior in terms of how awful it was, but it still felt like being burned at the stake. Tails gritted his teeth as hard as he could, trying not to show any signs of weakness to this monster. However, the smirk on the creature's face only grew wider with every passing second.

"Looks like I got myself a little kid pretending he's a big boy," the creature simpered, voice full of obnoxious sarcasm. "I wonder how long it'll take before he needs his blankie again."

The pain only got worse. Tails still refused to scream, even if it felt like he was being slowly ripped apart. Even with the adrenaline surely surging through him by now, every muscle he had was clenched, his mouth pressed so tightly shut it was a wonder Tails' teeth were still intact, and his eyes were practically glued open.

The creature in front of him began to laugh, a sinister, choked cackle of utter glee. Tails would have covered his ears if every nerve in his body wasn't firing with agony at hyperspeed. Even with his mouth shut, a lung-cracking scream started to force its way out-

And then he felt it. It was faint, but it was there. A sensation of being wet. Immediately followed by his breath being cut short. Tails' agony started to fade, but it became replaced with the unwelcome sensation of him choking on nothing, unable to draw in any air.

All of a sudden, the monster's emotion switched from ecstatic to ballistic. His laughter immediately stopped, and it was replaced with screams of utter rage. "THIS IS NOT THE END! WHEN I FIND YOU AGAIN I WILL MAKE IT LAST FOR HOURS, AND BY THE TIME I'M DONE WITH YOU-"

Without warning, the screaming stopped, the red glow of the room blinked out, and everything around Tails was a sea of black once more.

* * *

The world came back to Tails in a rush that nearly sent a wave of nausea rocketing through him.

The nausea was held back by an oppressive surge of fear, because he was suddenly unable to breathe and was choking on saltwater. Not daring to risk looking around, he thrashed his arms in a desperate attempt to try and clear the water away from him. It did nothing. Tails tried to use his namesakes, but they encountered so much resistance that no matter how he tried, he couldn't spin them fast enough to propel himself anywhere.

Tails' head jerked upward in a desperate attempt to get air. That was when he noticed his plane hovering- no, _floating_ \- only a few meters above him.

Tails thrashed faster, not even sure what he was doing anymore, but knowing he could save himself if only he made it a little bit further-

Black spots danced in front of his eyes. His limbs moved out of sync, wasting his remaining energy but moving him a few inches closer at a time, his only thought _I can make it I can make it I can make it I can make it…_

Then, his arms and legs stopped moving, just a foot or so out of reach of the plane's wing. His mind wanted to keep going, but his body had just given up. With nothing, not even a sigh, left in him, he began to sink back towards the bottom-

Before two strong arms grabbed him and jerked him upwards with monumental force. Tails could only register dim surprise before his head broke the surface and he was pulled onto the plane's wing.

Naturally, the first thing Tails did was retch, expelling what looked like gallons of seawater from his lungs. Then he did it again. And again. And again.

After his body finally, finally, _finally_ felt completely empty, he mustered up the strength to turn his head and see his savior. He was more surprised than he should have been to see Rouge perched on the main part of the plane, casually sitting with her legs crossed like nothing she'd done had been out of the ordinary.

"You're not a showoff, so when you started doing all those weird aerial maneuvers, I knew something was up," she explained. "Once your plane crashed, I just flew to it so I could help you, well, not drown. Luckily enough, you're a lot lighter than you look, even when waterlogged."

Tails was too exhausted to do much, but he had just enough energy to whisper, "Thank you."

After a few minutes of this, Tails managed to pull himself up to a sitting position, which gave him a better look at the wreck that used to be his plane. The other wing was noticeably bent. The paint on its underside was coming off in huge flakes, and its metal was marred with deep, jagged scratches. One wheel was missing, and two of the three that remained barely even resembled a wheel anymore. Even the propeller hadn't been immune: one of the three blades had been ripped off, only a pitiful stump remaining, and the whole thing appeared slightly askew.

"You had a couple of brushes with death there," Rouge said. "Your plane hit the helicopter at least half a dozen times, yet somehow you didn't die, were never ejected, and it appeared as though the plane went into the water because you steered it there. However, it still led to- well, _this._ "

Suddenly, Tails' namesakes felt wet again. When he looked down, he realized with a start that the plane wasn't done sinking yet. Its center wasn't under yet, but it was only a matter of time.

"Can you fly back to the island on your own?" Rouge stood up, preparing to fly off before the plane sucked them down with it.

"Probably not," Tails forced out.

With careful maneuvering, Rouge managed to pick up Tails, trying to hold on to him as tightly as possible.

"Well, hold on tight, then. You're going for a little ride."

Rouge took off. She looked impressively pained as she flew, which made sense since she had about sixty pounds worth of almost-dead weight in her arms. Tails tried to start spinning his namesakes to provide a little extra lift, but they still spun too slowly to do much more than shower Rouge with droplets of saltwater. After about thirty seconds of this, Rouge asked him to just stay still and try to be an easy passenger.

As they returned to the mainland, Tails didn't want to look back, but felt like he had to. Too many hours of his life had gone into that plane for him to not witness its final moments, no matter how saddening and pathetic they were.

Thus, he let a solitary tear trace its way down his cheek when it slipped under the water, not even leaving ripples in its place.

However, the sadness was replaced with fear once he realized how little he'd done so far. He hadn't saved Sonic from being possessed, he hadn't saved the villagers from being attacked by the horrific creature that had stolen his body, and he couldn't even save his most prized possession from being destroyed.

What would happen when the time came that he had to save himself?


	15. Fear the Dark

"How can you expect me to believe what you've just said?"

At this point, Tails was back on the island, being interrogated by Shadow. The helicopter, miraculously, had managed to take flight again despite being pretty badly damaged, but since Tails' plane had sunk, he really didn't have that much he could do at the time other than keep order back on the island. And Shadow's questioning meant that he couldn't even do that right now.

"What was I supposed to say- I just started doing freaky death-defying stunts for the heck of it? Does that sound like me, at all?"

"I wouldn't be too surprised," Shadow countered. "You do love to go on and on about science this and science that and speak in technobabble no sane being could understand, so having spread that trait to your flying skills wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility."

Knuckles had come out to join the party, having taken about forty or so bandages from the medical kit Sonic always kept in his hut to cover up the lines of burnt, inflamed flesh on his back. "You're saying that whatever this thing is made you hallucinate? How can you prove it?"

"I can't," Tails said. "What, do you think I can just send you through what I just experienced with a snap of my fingers? Why can't you just believe what I'm saying?"

"Because it doesn't make sense," Shadow said.

"The last twelve hours haven't made sense either. Get used to it," Tails shot back.

Before it could dissolve into a full-blown argument, they all picked up the sound of helicopter blades. In seemingly no time at all, the helicopter was hovering above the island once more, before settling on the ground this time with a gentle _thud_. To just about everybody, that was an unexpected development.

Rouge called out, "Guys, you're not supposed to land! You have to stay in the air at all times so Sonic has a harder time performing homing attacks on the helicopter!"

"We know," one of the pilots responded. "We're really sorry about this-" they then tried and failed to conceal a massive yawn- "but we need to clock out for a few hours. We've been awake for twenty-two hours and counting, and we've drank so much coffee to get to this point that it isn't doing anything anymore."

Shadow managed to choke out an "I understand." As soon as they heard those words, both pilots staggered out of the helicopter, made it about ten feet further, and then collapsed on the grass, asleep before their heads hit the ground.

Most of the villagers were not pleased, considering they'd only made two runs to the mainland out of the eight they needed and it was barely past sunset. However, the few who somehow remained complacent- mostly those so old they were beyond caring or so young they didn't quite grasp what was going on- took the opportunity to get some rest of their own, retiring to their huts and cottages.

As for everyone else, resentment looked ready to boil over. Resentment towards the eighty or so lucky ones that escaped the nightmare, towards the pilots for not being helpful, towards anyone and everyone. Sure, most of these villagers were usually polite, but for just about everybody, their lives came first and good manners a very pitiful second.

Sensing that everyone was in a foul mood, everyone knew they had to do something to prevent the crowd from erupting into a full-scale riot. Thus, Tails yelled at the crowd, "I know, I know. You're all probably thinking, 'Why the heck are the pilots asleep and _not_ helping us get out of here?' But considering that Shadow and Rouge are the ones who brought them here, I think that they'll be best suited to answer this question!"

Rouge took over from there. "They were the only two people our employer could spare. Everyone else is off transporting a weapon of mass destruction. They were nearing the end of a sixteen-hour shift when we got them, and the only reason they're even here is that they're getting paid some serious overtime for this. They're not robots, they need sleep too. Do you want them falling asleep while you're in the air, as opposed to now?"

The murmurs of discontent didn't disappear, but they calmed down somewhat, which was all they really needed. Rouge finished off by saying, "Sorry for this, but they'll need a few hours at best. Please try to be patient."

Everyone in the crowd seemed to turn to the person next to them, trying to find some comfort in them. However, no one in particular was yelling wild accusations at them, trying to attack them, or sobbing hysterically (from what the five of them could see, anyway) which was a big plus.

Nevertheless, Rouge tried to see if there was something they could do to help. "Tails, can you fly a helicopter?"

Tails shook his head. "If there are manuals on board, I can probably figure out how without too much trouble, but even then it'll take a few hours, and I need to sleep too, you know."

"I'll check if there's anything," Rouge said. Then, she turned around to see Metal Sonic, who had just come out of the woods (presumably hunting for Sonic again). Even when Tails said, "Don't worry, he's working for us now," it didn't quell her fears completely.

"I may possess the capabilities to send villagers to the mainland one at a time," Metal Sonic stated in his flat voice. "Should I inform them about this possibility?"

"That doesn't seem like a very good idea," Tails countered. "Saying that you _might_ be able to do it isn't good enough. If you take the first villager and suddenly find out that you can't make it, both of you die. Hold on, what do robots call dying?"

"Just 'dying', Tails the Fox," Metal Sonic said.

"Okay then," Rouge said. "Now, if we can't do anything while the pilots are passed out, how about we try to get a few hours of sleep ourselves? We can wrap this up in the morning."

Sticks was not pleased with that solution. "What happens if this thing attacks at night? We'll all be asleep, so there won't be a chance any of us can stop it, and then we're all dead."

"We'll sleep in shifts. I've had to do that for a few missions," Shadow said. "Including Metal Sonic, there's six of us. I'm not counting Amy because, unfortunately, she won't be of much use in a fight, so she should just sleep and try to recover. Two of us watch for Sonic at a time, the rest of us sleep. Two hours each shift means everyone will get four good hours of sleep, barring us being attacked. Let's assign shifts quickly so we can figure out who's staying awake."

Tails was immediately assigned to the last shift, as he looked so exhausted he was about to fall over. Rouge volunteered to stick with him so that there would be someone experienced in hand-to-hand combat on duty at all times. Metal Sonic quickly took the first shift, as did Knuckles, which left Shadow and Sticks with the middle shift.

However, there was one question to still be addressed, which Sticks quickly brought up. "How are we supposed to keep an eye on the villagers?"

"We walk in circles around the village while it's our shift," Rouge explained. "Based on how big the village is, I'm guessing that one lap should take about twenty minutes if we walk fast." This was quickly followed by, "Should we tell the villagers to go home for now, lock the doors, and try to get some sleep of their own?"

"Makes sense," Tails said. "Can you make this announcement as well?"

"Yes, I can," Rouge replied.

Without a word, she strode purposefully over to the large cluster of villagers gathered around the plaza, hoping that this wouldn't incite a mass riot.

* * *

Somehow, no more blood was spilled following that bombshell.

A few curses were sent her way, and one villager tried to make a mad dash for the helicopter like he would magically know how to fly the thing, but nobody threw any punches, an action for which Rouge was glad. She was trained in hand-to-hand combat in case it came to blows, but these weren't villains hellbent on taking over the world- they were just ordinary, terrified people who didn't want to die. Even if she had to restrain one, it would have felt wrong.

Sonic's hut was still a wreck, and the respective places the others lived were too far away for going back to them to make any sense. Therefore, Shadow dragged out a couple of sleeping bags he found inside the now-grounded helicopter.

As soon as they were set up, Tails slipped inside one and was asleep before his head hit the ground. Sticks quickly followed suit. Metal Sonic and Knuckles strode off for their shift, one with a slight limp and the other covered with a mosaic of bandages.

Rouge nodded off as well after a few minutes, leaving only Shadow awake. He briefly contemplated just pulling an all-nighter and going to sleep when he was actually tired, but the last thing he needed was for a sudden wave of exhaustion to hit him halfway through his shift.

Thus, his thoughts soon meshed into a hazy blur, and everything seemed to shut down as his eyes closed, leaving this world behind.

* * *

It was no surprise that Metal Sonic and Knuckles were hoping for an uneventful shift.

The villagers had mostly heeded the advice Rouge had given them, disappearing inside their homes. However, the occasional straggler still paced around the village. One actually walked side by side with Knuckles for a few minutes before peeling off into a badly-lit alley and vanishing from sight again.

A sliver of the moon lit their way somewhat, but the walk around the village was shadowy, and whenever a cloud floated in front of it everything plunged into blackness. Luckily enough, the paths they followed were relatively free of things to trip over, so they managed to make it most of the way around their first lap without falling over.

Ironically, when one of them finally did, it wasn't because of something on the ground. It was caused by a piercing beep shattering the relative silence.

Knuckles suddenly face-planted. Metal Sonic stopped to pull him back up. While Knuckles did get back on his feet without a problem, it put him in prime position to be lambasted by Eggman's voice.

"Hey! To whoever's listening, I've finished setting up a defense network. Meaning, as soon as I can find something that will get me there, I'll head to Bygone Island with some stuff that can help you fight Sonic. Chances are, I'll be there in less than an hour. That is all. Farewell!"

The communicator then shut off. No words were needed to figure out what any of that meant, so Metal Sonic and Knuckles didn't waste time talking about it, instead just finishing up their first lap.

That was when things started to deviate from "uneventful."

They were in sight of the rest of their allies (minus Amy, who had been recovering in Sonic's cottage for the past six hours or so) when they noticed something off. Sure, their forms were all prone, lying in various poses of slumber, just as they had expected. However, the closer they looked, the more… _wrong_ it seemed. They were twitching quite a bit, far more so than when they usually slept, and even stranger, as Knuckles and Metal Sonic approached them, he noticed that they were all moaning in what sounded like pain, sometimes spitting out garbled words but most of the time just a long, continuous noise.

"Okay," Knuckles said once he got a good look at them. "What the heck is going on?"

Suddenly, they all began to shake violently, letting loose the occasional scream and clutching themselves. Drool foamed out of their mouths, their eyes clenched shut as tightly as possible, and their movements became so prominent they began to hit each other in the process.

Knuckles' worries grew worse by the second. "What the- how do we stop this?"

"We wake them up, Knuckles the Echidna," Metal Sonic stated. "The others all appear to be in a state of Rapid Eye Movement sleep, meaning that they are likely experiencing an event known as a dream. However, they appear to not be very pleasant ones."

Rouge rolled over in her sleep, giving Knuckles a good look at her face. It was frozen in an expression of sheer horror, teeth clenched.

Knuckles' chest seized up. His body went rigid for a second. But once he could function again, he asked the question that was probably being thought about by Metal Sonic as well.

"What the heck is going on in their heads?"


	16. Nightmare Fuel

Shadow was more surprised than he should have been to come to in a corpse-strewn field just outside the village.

How Metal Sonic and Knuckles hadn't woken him up before Sonic or _whatever_ caused all this went on a rampage, he didn't know, but it appeared that was the case.

Suddenly, Tails, Amy, Rouge, and Sticks were standing in a cluster, only about ten feet or so away. Shadow decided to try and use them to figure out what the heck was going on, and he began to make his way towards them, gingerly stepping around the bodies and trying harder and harder to not feel sick.

Once he got there, Sticks looked surprisingly calm, but Rouge, Amy, and Tails looked uneasy. Tails especially, which was proven when Shadow caught him mumbling, "please, not another hallucination," over and over again under his breath.

The ruined wasteland around them vanished and was replaced with the black void lit by a faint red glow. Tails whimpered, knowing exactly what was coming next, but the others, while a bit mystified at the sudden change, hadn't reached their panic threshold yet.

That changed when every limb they had proceeded to lock up, rendering them incapable of moving. They could blink and they could breathe, but that was about it.

Then came the laughter: a twisted, sickening screech assaulting their ears with raw, unfiltered agony. Nothing they could do would make the horrifying cackle stop. Their heads pounded, their hearts raced, their ears felt like they would burst any second-

And just as suddenly as it started, it stopped, leaving nothing but silence behind. However, they now had the cause of it standing right in front of them. Upon seeing it, Tails screeched and tried to bolt again, but suffered the same non-result as last time.

Once again, it looked like Sonic, if Sonic had been attacked by a serial killer. Even worse from last time, this thing's face wasn't much more than a scarred, deformed mass attached to his neck, allowing its bloody mouth to twist into a series of increasingly inhuman expressions. As the spheres of bloody light flickered on in his eyes, he spat, releasing quite a bit of blood and something that looked like a tooth, then began to speak.

"Oh, this place is beautiful, isn't it?" The thing twisted its face into a new expression that vaguely resembled a smile. "And it looks like we have a returning guest! Glad to see you back here," it hissed.

Tails closed his eyes as tightly as possible, but Shadow took the lead this time. "You don't scare me," he snarled. "All you are is a wannabe supervillain with an ego the size of the moon. In other words, just about everything else I've ever had to face."

"Oh, I'm _so_ worried," the apparition said, sarcasm oozing from every word. "But sure. I guess you're just _too dang tough_ to be scared by me." Then, it paused briefly. "Maybe I don't scare you. But I'm sure _this_ will."

One second, Shadow was perfectly fine, except for the fact that he couldn't move, of course. The next, a surge of cold air rushed towards his left shoulder. When he turned, he noticed the stump that used to be his right arm, spraying enough blood that it looked like he was finger-painting with the stuff on the floors. Even though Shadow wasn't _that_ hardcore, no one would have been surprised if that actually had happened at some point.

Then came the agony, a thousand needles stabbing into his unprotected skin. Shadow didn't hesitate for even a second, proceeding to shout swear words at the monster that made Tails and Amy wish they could cover their ears. That is, if they had suitable limbs left over after they covered their eyes.

"Sorry about that interruption before we came to this _wonderful_ event," the figure said. "I was just giving you a taste of what your little island will look like when I'm done with it."

"Not happening, you freak," Sticks spat. "I don't know what you're playing at, but we're going to end you all the same! You'll never obliterate me! I'm unob- unobliter-" She paused for a second as she regained her train of thought. "You'll never kill me!"

"There are fates worse than death," said the creature. "You should know, considering I can make you suffer one. Right. Now."

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then, Sticks started to clutch her head, shouting, "There's voices in my head!" Sticks rocked back and forth as much as her restraints allowed, screeching and cursing, before suddenly, it all stopped as Sticks closed her eyes.

When she opened them and began to speak, it was in a voice that was not her own. "See? It's perfectly possible to take control of someone's mind! All you have to do is bring them to me, and I can show them."

Shadow kept swearing up a storm, and Sticks now eyed them with a look that would come off as terrifying even if they knew it wasn't really her doing it. She started talking again, saying, "My powers are unlimited in this world. But let me demonstrate that on you first. By the time I'm done, there'll only be a smear left of you."

Tails squeezed his eyes closed as tightly as possible, while Rouge and Amy mentally prepared themselves the best that they could, terrified of what would come next.

Nobody could nor would have predicted what _did_ happen, however. Instead of attacking Amy, Rouge, or even a near-traumatized Tails, the creature began to shriek itself hoarse, a shrill, horrific cry that probably could have shattered glass. Then, he began to bend into impossible poses- one that looked kind of like a pyramid, another sending him into a full split, and on and on- as the lights in his eye sockets began to flicker rapidly and reddish steam billowed out of his mouth. Within seconds, the noise had reached a crescendo and a painful, reddish-white spear of light began to erupt from him, forcing everyone to shut their eyes for fear of being blinded.

Then, just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. Shadow's arm had returned to its rightful place, taking the searing pain with it, and Sticks shook her head a few times, presumably no longer possessed anymore. And the creature from before was gone.

In its place stood- or more accurately, floated- Sonic, and the real one this time. His eyes existed this time, and they were the electric shade of green they used to be. His gloves and shoes were a little scuffed and dirty, but they were free of blood and not falling apart. His quills were all in their proper positions. Even his teeth seemed less menacing, not being as pointy as they were before. the only thing about him that looked out of place was the look of sheer horror on his face.

"What the- holy crap, that just worked," Sonic- if this was truly Sonic and not another hallucination- said. "Or is this just another cruel trick?"

"Sonic!" Amy and Tails both yelled at the top of their lungs.

"It's really us," Rouge added.

"Prove it," Sonic said. "I've been through too much crap to be tricked by some cheap imitation of my friends now."

"Why the hell do I have to do that? Can't you recognize your own damn friends? They're two feet in front of your faces, what the hell else do you need, a birth certificate?" Shadow shot this all out in one long stream of bitter negativity.

"Yep, it's really you," Sonic said. "Only the real Shadow could tick me off that quickly."

"How are you here? Why should we believe that _you_ aren't just a cruel illusion being performed on us?" Amy wanted confirmation, just because her feelings for Sonic were still there to some extent, even if Sonic was gone.

"Just believe me," Sonic said. "I have two minutes maximum before _he_ takes control again, so I need to say this quickly. This thing is getting stronger every second that passes. At this rate, you have a week, maximum, before he can get to the mainland without needing a boat. And when that happens…"

"Game over," Rouge said, finishing the thought. "Either some government is going to kill Sonic- er, _you_ \- after this monster goes on a mass rampage, or even worse, it just can't be stopped and everyone else dies."

"Exactly," Sonic said, frantic and jittery. "You have to end this soon, before you run out of time. Before this thing ends any more innocent lives."

Tails asked, "Do you have an idea where you are right now?"

"Unfortunately, no," Sonic said. "Some kind of cave. Lots of stalactites and even more insects. It's not Bygone Island, though. That's for sure."

Amy got a little teary-eyed. "Will you ever be back? Can I ever have my Sonic back again?"

Normally, Sonic would have just shrugged off the blatant attempt to start flirting with him, but this time the sentiment hit him with such a wave of emotion that he began crying too. "I'll try, Amy, I'll try. No matter what, I'll never-"

Suddenly, he seized up, and his eyes started to flicker, changing from vivid green to murderous red. Clutching his head, Sonic began contorting into a series of positions that looked horrifically painful.

He let loose a piercing scream before trying to talk again. "He's fighting- OW!- me for -EEEE! control!"

Rouge yelled, "Fight back, then! You know what to do!"

"He's too- ACK!- strong for that! But- YEOW!- whatever you do, don't- don't-"

He never finished the sentence. A long scream erupted from his mouth instead, as he collapsed to his knees, then vanished, leaving nothing but the void to keep the others company. However, that wouldn't stay true for long. a few seconds after that, the creature that had tormented them earlier had reappeared in a puff of red mist, shouting the curse words that even Shadow rarely used, they were so vulgar.

After its little mini-rant was over, it finally turned to address the others. "You already know too much," it said. "But that doesn't mean that I can't hurt you some more while we're here."

However, before he could start, Shadow started shaking violently, so fast his eyes looked distorted. This didn't last for long, because a few seconds later, he suddenly vanished- one second there, the next, gone, leaving the other four behind.

"No!" The creature started screaming to the heavens above. "Not again!"

A few seconds later, Amy repeated the same process- violent shaking, then pulling a disappearing act. Sticks followed, then Rouge, leaving Tails alone with the monster.

He knew what was coming when he was taken by the violent shaking fit. However, in the final few seconds before he left this horrible place, he heard the figure utter a single, fateful sentence.

"I need more power… and I need it now."


	17. The Digital Exodus

When Tails came to, everyone within a ten-yard radius was staring at him.

He felt someone strong- probably Knuckles- remove his hands from his shoulders once he sat up and took a brief look around. Sticks regarded him as if he had a contagious disease, keeping her distance and looking him up and down. Shadow looked as stern as he always did. Rouge's usual easy smile had vanished, replaced with an expression of concern.

His first question to all of them wasn't "Why the heck are you all staring at me?", even though that might have seemed more logical to some. Instead, he asked everyone, "Were you guys all dreaming, too?"

Rouge and Shadow both nodded. Sticks went above and beyond, saying, "Heck, yes! The freaky thing controlling Sonic tried to take over my mind! It was awful!"

Tails turned to Shadow. "When you were dreaming, did you get your arm ripped off?"

As much as Shadow hated to admit that he was wrong, he managed a slight nod, causing Tails to tie everything together. "Unless this was about a seven-million-to-one coincidence, there was something artificially manipulating our dreams. Let's just hope the rest of the village isn't affected by this…"

Rouge decided to keep pushing, and say, "Okay, how do you think this thing gained the ability to jack with our sleep?"

"I'm not certain, but if I had to guess, it's the same way he gained the ability to shoot lasers out of his hands," Tails said. "Before any of this happened, I had a program designed to shoot a similar laser out of the side of the computer, although I was only going to use it for cutting things. I also had an unfinished program designed to replicate and analyze someone's dream on a screen by reading their brainwaves. Thus, it's only logical to assume that since this thing uses my computer as its power source, it inherited the ability to do anything my computer could do. And since it used to be a computer virus, it can probably alter the code and intent of the things I already have on there."

"Hold up," Knuckles said. "Is there anything else on that computer that could potentially get us all killed?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Tails said. "There are at least two things I haven't even mentioned yet that could be potential threats. One of them links computers together so that when you use one, all of them change- it's pretty well-hidden, but let's hope he never finds that one. The second one is a power-saving improvement I implemented, which allowed it to charge faster and lose battery far more slowly. I'm pretty confident that one's already being used; it would explain why he's soaking up way more damage than he should be whenever we fight him, and why he heals much faster than anyone should be able to."

"Good to know," Shadow said. Then, he changed the subject. "I know this isn't that relevant, but now that our sleep schedule is royally screwed up, what are we supposed to do for the shifts?"

That question never got answered.

In the distance, there as a muted crash, followed immediately by someone screaming. A second crash immediately followed. Then a third. Tails turned to face the source just as a streak of blue flashed between the dwellings for a split second

"Crap," Tails said. "Guys, I think Sonic's back for round two!"

Shadow didn't bother responding. "It's less about whether he's back and more about whether we can stop him. Come on!"

He led the charge towards the source of the noise, the others running flat-out just to keep up. Several lives had already been lost to get to this point. No one in the village wanted any more people to die.

However, their desires didn't matter to the psychotic killer on the loose.

* * *

They saw Sonic before he saw them.

He was surrounded by fallen-down or otherwise destroyed shacks that used to be homes for villagers. A sickening smile was plastered across his face, revealing that the teeth that had been knocked out in the last fight had inexplicably returned. His gloves and shoes were still falling apart and bloodstained, but other than that, he looked good as new save for the crimson eyes.

It took Sticks managing to smash him in the face with a boomerang before he finally noticed their existence, though. When he did, he smirked even wider, saying, "Well, well, well. Look who's come out to play!"

He started to say something else as well, but Shadow didn't give him the satisfaction of finishing his sentence. Instead, he slammed into Sonic with a homing attack, knocking him backwards into the rubble that he'd created. Despite making a dent in the ground, he'd hit it so hard, he got up like nothing had happened and proceeded to return the favor, causing Shadow to crash into the sun-baked dirt and get the wind knocked out of him.

Rouge had something kind of like a weapon on hand- a high-voltage electric taser. She fired it now, hitting Sonic's back. Sonic seized up for a second, but quickly shrugged it off, preparing to attack. Rouge would have liked to just fire it again, but the taser was not one of the newer models available, meaning it had to reload after each shot for a few seconds.

Sonic used that time to dart away from them, stopping in the center of the plaza. As the others, confused as to what he was doing but knowing that it couldn't be anything good, chased after him, the familiar red glow began to surround his hands.

Shadow realized what he was about to do a split second before he actually did it. He managed to yell "Stop him!", but by then, it was too late.

The lasers burst out of his hands, cutting into several cottages and hits from his left and his right. More screams filled the air. In a quick, fluid motion, Sonic turned a full 180 degrees, slicing through every dwelling within a half-mile radius. Tails and Rouge instinctively took to the skies, while the others hit the dirt. As the lasers shut off, a slight sheen of sweat now coating Sonic's face, a number of the screams died with it.

Tails' heart plunged down an elevator shaft. For all he knew, half of the population of the village had been slaughtered, just like that.

But then, some of the screams of terrified villagers resumed, signifying to Tails that there were more survivors of that attack than that. And that was all the motivation he needed to take a flash grenade from the belt he'd been wearing since that morning and pull the pin before hurling it at Sonic.

It went off too early, as expected. However, it did its intended job quite well- for a few seconds, Sonic screwed up his eyes in pain, standing stock-still. Unfortunately, so did everyone else, save Tails, which negated any real advantage it brought. Tails wasn't deterred, throwing another one as he moved closer.

This one had less effect, because Sonic had an idea it was coming and shielded his eyes. It worked the same in the opposite direction, though, and the blast allowed Tails to inch closer and closer to his former friend, along with the others.

Just as Sonic was no longer blinded, Metal Sonic launched a homing attack of his own, this one connecting and knocking Sonic down briefly. It only worked for a second, though as Sonic leapt back to his feet to prepare for another attack.

Knuckles threw a punch at him but missed. Rouge fired another burst from her taser, but her shot was about six inches too far to the right. Sonic tried another homing attack, this one on Shadow, but he'd grown wise to his tactics by now and dodged almost effortlessly.

For some unknown reason, Sonic didn't attack them for a few seconds after that, instead choosing to apparently retreat. For a second, no one knew why- sure, they were still in the fight, but they'd barely scratched him.

However, it came to Tails in a hurry. "The helicopter!"

They rushed to try and stop what they knew was going to happen, but by the time they got there, it was too late. After Sonic had finished with the helicopter, it was so bent, broken, and twisted that it would have been near impossible for an outsider to figure out what the heck it used to be. Even worse, both the pilots, who had been asleep beside it, lay dead with singed, smoking holes in their bodies, looking like they'd never even woken up before Sonic had ended their lives via lasers to the chest.

Speaking of Sonic, he was nowhere to be seen. He wasn't behind the helicopter, and the village was too flat and had too many missing dwellings for someone to easily hide. So what was he doing?

However, their thoughts were interrupted by the sound of cursing, immediately followed by several small explosions. Tracing the noise, they found that Sonic had become visible again, this time attacking Eggman as he fired missiles at him. Neither attack was proving very effective- Sonic's homing attack kept bouncing off Eggman's flying machine and his lasers couldn't cut through it no matter what he tried, while Eggman's missiles were much slower than Sonic, especially when he wasn't leading his shots.

The others rushed in again. Sonic was so busy dealing with Eggman in front of him that he didn't notice the others coming in from the side until they were almost on top of him. He whirled around, trying to dodge the attacks and hit his attackers, but failed on both aspects. Shadow hit first, then Knuckles, then Rouge. Sonic's lasers faltered, he collapsed to the ground, and he was buried under three strong bodies.

It looked like they'd won, for a second. But that was far from the truth.

Sonic, while weakened, still had enough energy to charge up the lasers again. Shadow, Knuckles, and Rouge knew what was coming after that, so they quickly got off him, at which point, he ran. Not away, which was what they expected. Instead, he ran straight for his wreck of a cottage.

Tails' heart leapt into his throat. "Oh crap, Amy's in there!"

Before they could get there, Sonic bolted out of the cottage. Fortunately, it didn't look like he had Amy with him. Less fortunately, he definitely hadn't come out empty-handed.

Sonic proceeded to break into another cottage, then several more. Tails and the others chased after him, but he was going in and out of dwellings to fast for even Metal Sonic to keep up. A few screams rang out from then, but none of them cut off abruptly, which was a small consolation for the rest of them. After his eighth break-in, in the split second where he was facing Tails, he noticed that Sonic was carrying what appeared to be a pile of small gray boxes.

Before Tails could analyze it further, Sonic bolted away from the village, trying to put as much distance as he could between himself and the others.

"Metal Sonic, go after him," Rouge commanded. "Everyone else, let's check the homes Sonic broke into and see if everyone in them is safe."

Metal Sonic complied and was gone in a flash. The others split up, trying to enter the homes as peaceably as possible.

As Knuckles entered one of them, his first words were, "Don't worry, Sonic's gone. You can come out now."

Three terrified kids, none of them looking older than eleven or twelve, edged out from hiding spots- in a closet, behind a pile of boxes, and behind the shower curtain.

Knuckles asked them a simple question. "Did he hurt any of you while he was in here?"

"No," one of them managed to choke out, "but he took the laptop sitting out on the counter."

"No injuries, but took a laptop," Knuckles said. "Thanks for the information."

He emerged from the place to find that most of the others had beaten him out. After he convened with the others, they quickly noticed a similar theme among every home Sonic had broken into. Nobody had appeared to be hurt during these invasions, by he'd taken any computers that he'd found with him.

Last (but most certainly not least) came Sonic's own cottage. As they entered, they noticed that the place was even more of a mess than it had been before Sonic had whipped through it- almost everything was broken, ripped free from the foundation, or otherwise not where it was supposed to be.

"Amy?" Tails called this out, hoping that she hadn't been hurt or killed by Sonic. "Are you okay?"

Suddenly, there was a muffled groan, appearing to come from behind a door painted a faded brown. Tails threw open the door, revealing a tired, shaking Amy pinned against the far wall of a closet, behind a coat she'd gotten Sonic a few months ago.

"As soon as he was seen in the village, I hid in here," Amy said. "It was a pretty painful hiding spot- not nearly enough space- but that's better than being dead or kidnapped."

She hobbled out of the closet, taking in the carnage for the first time as her mouth fell open. "Wow. Thank goodness I wasn't out there."

Tails' face fell again. They'd won again, but it was a hollow victory. With Tails' plane sunk and the helicopter destroyed, they were stranded on the island for the time being. The helicopter pilots made for at least two definite casualties, and Tails didn't yet have the heart to go searching through all the dwellings to look for bodies.

However, he did want to look for one thing while he was here. He turned towards where he'd placed his safe, and it was still there. But its door had been thrown wide open, and the electronic lock that had kept it shut was nothing more than a singed, sparking mess. But the worst part of it all was revealed once he looked inside.

Tails' computer was gone.


	18. A Most Dangerous Game

The village was quieter than it had been in quite some time.

Part of that came from the villagers' shock, of course. But the sheer weight of what had just happened played a part as well. Even Sticks, ever the one to launch into a conspiracy theory, remained silent.

After an extended stretch of this, Shadow was the one to end it. "Everyone, come on! We have a global threat on our hands that's just taken almost every computer in the village, and all we're doing is standing around like idiots!" Then, he started shouting orders. "Tails, get all your inventions that might help us take this bastard down. Knuckles, help Tails carry everything! Amy, start searching Sonic's cottage to make sure that nothing else got taken. Sticks, Eggman, you search everywhere else! I'll try to keep the villagers calm, and Rouge, do you have any of that really strong coffee you use to get through extra-long stakeouts?"

Rouge yelled, "I have a few bags!"

"Well, then make it all! Something tells me we're going to need it!"

Everyone scurried off to perform their respective duties. Tails could barely take off, he was so exhausted, but he managed it somehow. The others looked like they were burning the midnight oil, but they pushed through their exhaustion to assess the damage.

While none of them had a clear view of what truly happened, all of them probably held the idea that it was not going to be pretty.

* * *

Sticks' mood soured further with every cottage she entered.

In each one, she'd come across cowering villagers, smashed furniture, broken windows. That she'd come prepared for. However, nothing could prepare her for the blood splatters that stained some cottages red, the surviving villagers sporting horrific injuries that made Amy's crippled leg look like a minor inconvenience, and even the occasional body.

After she noticed one villager missing an arm, she staggered out of the cottage to do two things. One, dry-heave until her stomach stopped tossing, and two, shout out (between heaves), "Did you guys bring any medical supplies? 'Cause a couple of people here look like they might really need them!"

Shadow responded, "we brought gauze and antiseptic, not sure what else, though! Also, none of us are real doctors, so we might have to improvise if it's that horrible!"

"Well, do it fast," Sticks shouted. "Some of these folks look like they're going to bleed out!"

Shadow yelled, "I'll go look for them! However, I can't apply first aid to save my life, so you'll probably have to do this yourself!"

Sticks dashed around like crazy for the next few minutes, trying to assure the injured that everything would be alright if they just stayed still, and eventually having all the medical supplies Shadow and Rouge had brought thrown at her. Sure enough, there wasn't that much beyond what they thought they had- most of it was gauze and antiseptic.

Most people would have been hopelessly confused. Sticks, however, was not most people. Years of roughing it in the woods and having her brain filled with conspiracies had left her with quite a bit of skill in terms of addressing injuries without proper medical supplies. Her hands were a blur as she poured antiseptic into anything open, and strategically utilized the gauze to fix or bandage the wounds to the best of her ability. Unfortunately for the suffering, the lack of a hospital on the island meant that Sticks couldn't find any painkillers besides a generic brand of aspirin. Those that needed it took some regardless- if they were conscious, of course.

Sticks had to stop and dry-heave again in the middle of trying to patch up one villager's missing arm but otherwise was pretty effective. Within fifteen minutes, every villager that had injuries severe enough to merit attention had been accounted for.

During that time frame, Tails and Knuckles had returned with quite a few freaky inventions (a stun gun that shot pale blue bolts of energy whenever it was fired, his last flash grenade, the ray gun that transported the user inside someone's mind, a box covered in sharp edges that contained something Tails wouldn't discuss, and some kind of pale blue powder that Tails claimed could knock anyone out cold) and Eggman had provided minimal medical assistance (ironic considering he'd taken the title of _Doctor_ Eggman, but that was beside the point) but what he had done was complete. Metal Sonic had returned, his chasing of Sonic proving fruitless. Rouge had arrived on the scene with several pots of strong-smelling coffee. Amy had noticed nothing else missing, but she stayed in the cottage, not wanting to put extra strain on her leg. Shadow had calmed the villagers down enough that he risked slipping away for a second to join the rest of them.

Rouge put on a winning smile. "Coffee, anyone?"

Knuckles didn't bother with subtlety, taking his first sip straight out of one of the pots. Unfortunately for him, he also spilled quite a bit of it on himself, leaving him hopping up and down, gritting his teeth, and yelling, "Ow! Hot! So hot!" at the top of his lungs. The others merely shrugged, having gotten used to this by now.

"Let's just get cups," Rouge said, laced with obvious amusement. Everyone else merely nodded.

They'd need to be at their best to face the threat looming ahead.

* * *

The coffee was gone in less than fifteen minutes.

Tails felt like something was burning inside his stomach, but his eyes, which had been sagging and exhausted before the coffee, were bright and alert. At the moment, he was staring a hole in one of the things he'd brought that was not oriented towards combat- a simple monitor with a flame-orange case and a blank screen.

"It's a tracker," Tails said when the others asked. "With this, I can pinpoint the location of my computer with a margin of error of fewer than two feet. I just need to wait for it to finish calibrating- it gets data from satellites, so that takes time-

"Wait, how did you get it to do that?" Shadow interjected.

"I could go on a half-hour long tangent explaining that, but we don't have time," Tails said. "The point is, soon I'll be able to locate the computer, and wherever it is, Sonic's probably there as well."

"That seems like sound logic," Eggman said. "He wouldn't just leave it, it's too valuable."

He probably would have said more, but a sudden screeching beep drowned out whatever he was trying to say.

Tails swept up the tracker, saying, "it found the location! Now, I just need to make sure it's not changing, just in case Sonic's on the move."

He waited for a few seconds. When the coordinates remained the same, Tails then said, "Now, we need to go to the coordinates the tracker's given us, and we'll find my computer. It's saying those coordinates are 31.76 degrees latitude, 60.25 degrees longitude. That's only a few miles from here!"

Eggman seemed suspicious about this. "Shouldn't we match that up with an actual map to make sure it's not some kind of trap? Just saying, that sounds exactly like something I'd pull on you."

"Don't worry, doing that already," Rouge said. The map she produced was zoomed in close on the island, highlighting different features that intrepid tourists might care to see- the ruins of the Buddy Buddy Temple, the cliffs that opened to picturesque views, the Unnamed Village (obviously) and a few others. "Based on this map, the computer is located right outside the Buddy Buddy Temple," Rouge finished.

"Well, then what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Tails was already halfway out the door, several inventions strapped to his back, when he finished that sentence. The others, save Amy hurriedly followed in his wake, carrying everything Tails had brought.

Before he left, Shadow said, "Amy, stay in the village. Out of all of us, you're the most vulnerable, so we don't want you in harm's way if he attacks. You have a way to communicate with the others, right?"

"Yes," she said, "We still have those communicators Tails made for us a while back."

"If anything in the village feels even slightly wrong, tell us. We've lost too many people as it is. Nobody else dies today."

"You got it, Shadow," Amy said.

However, by the time she finished, she was talking to air.

* * *

"It's got to be around here somewhere…"

Tails had reached the coordinates that his tracker had displayed. They were still the same and he was right there, but lo and behold, no computers in sight.

"Maybe I need to get this thing fixed…" Tails trailed off. That was a problem for another time.

The others arrived in staggered waves, turning the grassy field upside down in an effort to locate Tails' computer. Not far away, the entrance to the Buddy Buddy Temple loomed, partially caved in due to the fiasco they'd been part of not long ago. None of them wanted to go inside, but with every passing second, that outcome seemed more and more likely.

Until, that is, Sticks saw something.

"Tails!" Sticks yelled. "I think this might be it!"

Tails bulleted towards Sticks as fast as his namesakes would allow. "Coming!"

Tails got there first, but soon, the others were also crowding around an incredibly ordinary bush, peeking at an object the little branches of said bush partially concealed. It was Tails' computer, no doubt about it, but there was one odd thing about all this that dampened the mood a little.

"Tails," asked Knuckles, "Why is the computer turned on?"

"I don't know," Tails admitted, "but it doesn't really matter. Now we can kill this monster for good!"

"Oh, really?" A piercing voice from inside the bush interrupted their rejoicing.

The smiles fell off of everyone's faces at the same time. Well, everyone except for Sonic, whose face dominated the computer monitor as he broke every single rule of online chatting etiquette you could think of (plus a couple that probably went unsaid).

"You think I'd be so stupid as to carry something I knew you could track me with to my hiding place?" He sneered, dried blood and even a bit of fur revealing to be caking his teeth. "I might not be you, Tails, but my intellect is still far superior to average cretins like your friends!"

Shadow shot off an indignant "Hey!" Eggman swore under his breath. And Knuckles-

Well, he just looked kind of confused. All he said was "wait, what's a cretin?"

"Thanks for proving my point, Knuckles," Sonic said, smirking. "Now, what was I about to say?" He paused for a few seconds, then his grin stretched from ear to ear and his eyes lit up. "Oh! I was just about to tell you that I have the entire village in the palm of my hand!"

Sticks glared at the screen. "Don't waste your breath on empty threats, you digital freak."

Sonic's cool expression vanished in an instant, replaced with a blood-marked snarl, before changing back just as quickly. Then, the video feed on the computer changed to reveal the barren plot of land that had once been the main plaza of the Unnamed Village.

However, Sonic was still able to talk to them through the monitor, and he wasted no time doing just that. And that was when things spiraled completely out of control.

"In a moment, you'll see," he hissed, "that my threats are anything but empty."

* * *

Elise hadn't left Aunt Lina's cottage since the announcement had been made that the flights were being stopped for a time.

She'd been lucky on all accounts thus far. First, she'd been one of the few to initially return to her cottage, sparing her from witnessing the destruction Sonic wrought on them with his second ambush. Second, the location of Aunt Lina's cottage, well away from the village center, had spared her from the brunt of the laser attacks.

The screams, however, weren't going to leave her for as long as she lived- a terrible thing, but it took backstage to her life having a significant chance of not lasting much longer.

Every single light in the house was on, even though she was lying on the sofa, desperately trying to get something resembling sleep. She hadn't been afraid of the dark in years, but something about the trauma of the thing that had killed her mother attacking again had sent her into a relapse of sorts, regressing her back to the scared little child she'd tried so hard to outgrow.

Right when she was finally about to drift off to sleep, a chorus of screams made her jolt awake and dive behind the sofa.

"What's happening?" She said this to herself, curled up in the fetal position and rocking back and forth. "What's going-"

Suddenly, her surroundings changed. One second, she was in Aunt Lina's cottage. The next, she had fallen on her back, staring up into a starless black sky tinged with bloody red.

She stood up, clutching herself tightly. That's when she noticed everyone else.

Every villager she'd seen, and quite a few more that she hadn't, had been transported to this mysterious place as well. Some were screaming their lungs out, others muttering unintelligible gibberish. A handful were crying, and a select few were laughing like this was some kind of twisted joke. All of them- children and adults, male and female, terrified and very terrified- tried to find some way to make sense of this.

But then, all the explanation they needed appeared in the sky. Firstly, an image of the wreck Sonic had become filling the sky. And secondly, the words that appeared next to it.

Three words were all it took. Just three.

I AM GOD.


	19. An Offer You Can't Refuse

If it was possible to reach through the screen and try to strangle Sonic, Knuckles would have done so at least six times throughout this conversation.

It wasn't because of his smug, obnoxious grin. Or the insult that he still didn't quite get. Or even that he was leaning in so close to the screen that you could practically see his pores.

It was because of what he'd done to the village.

Every villager he could easily remember, as well as a number that he couldn't, had gathered together in the barren remnants of the plaza like they'd been called there by some announcement only they could hear. None of them spoke. None of them moved, either. And when whatever was showing this footage changed to show them the scene from a different angle, each villager's eyes were revealed to be glazed over and lifeless. The lights were on, but nobody was home.

The team's communicator's let out a sudden, shrill beep, as Amy's voice penetrated the silence. "Guys! I don't know what's happening, but I think everyone's been- AAHH! SONIC, SAVE-"

Her voice abruptly cut off, leaving behind nothing but static for a few seconds. Then, the communicator stopped transmitting, and everything was silent once more.

Knuckles glared at the monitor, eyes blazing and teeth clenched. "What did you do to them?"

The monitor's feed changed to reveal Sonic once more, this time at a reasonable distance away. "Not much. I merely possessed them-" He trailed off to move whatever was filming this exchange to a new location- "using these helpful tools you so generously let me take." Once he showed them what he was talking about, the worst-case scenario began playing out in everyone's heads.

Each laptop that he'd taken was present, lined up in an orderly row. All of them were turned on. And all of them displayed what appeared to be a functioning replica of the disastrous program that had started this whole thing. Each monitor was mostly white, but a miniature Sonic bounced around each one, seemingly normal except for their red eyes and maniacal smiles.

"Now that I have all this power, I no longer need to wait until a person is asleep to work my magic," the creature hissed. "Unfortunately for me, while I can influence the minds of anyone within a certain area, the only way to assume direct control over someone would be to come into direct contact with them. But that's getting rectified soon."

Tails was almost tempted to ask how that would work, but Sonic was obliged to answer without any prompting. "Oh, and before you ask, just because I can't directly control someone's actions doesn't mean I can't kill them. Since I have access to their brains, nothing's stopping me to shut off their brain waves, which would lead to… I think you can figure it out."

"You wouldn't," Shadow said. "You're too weak for that. If you were going to do it, you would have done it already."

"Don't tempt him," Rouge hissed.

"Oh, please. I'm more than willing to pull the trigger," Sonic said. "Just for you, I'll prove it right now."

Everyone except Shadow and Metal Sonic felt their pulses skyrocket. Tails and Rouge clutched their chests like they were about to have a heart attack on the spot. Sonic moved his computer around again to reveal a cluster of mud-and-straw huts, with several destroyed ones leaving holes in an otherwise tight formation. It looked like there had once been living things there, but most of them were crumpled on the ground, eyes unblinking and bodies still. Just one of them was still upright.

For a moment, anyway.

Then, Sonic fixed his glare on him for a second, and he collapsed to join the rest of them in death.

"Holy… crap," Tails managed to stammer out. "He just slaughtered the entire Gogoba village!"

Shadow seemed concerned, but for reasons other than Tails. "I know this is still a massive threat, but didn't you hate those things?"

"Sure, I didn't particularly care for the Gogobas," Tails said, "but no one deserves what just happened to them!"

Sonic interrupted them once more, killing that debate before it became a distraction. "Now that you have an idea of how much power I have, thanks in part to you-" Knuckles clenched his fists here- "I have a proposition for you."

"We do not bargain with villains, such as yourself," Metal Sonic said. "As Doctor Eggman can attest, doing so never ends well for the normal person."

"Can it, you second-rate knockoff," Sonic snarled, breaking composure or a second. "Unless you want all these villagers- and yourselves- to be dead, I suggest you listen."

He began laying out the details, slow and steady. "First off, I want access to every computer on this island, as well as anything on Doctor Eggman's base. Second, I want fast, working transportation to the mainland. I'm keeping the villagers under my control until I reach the dock there. If anything tries to kill, injure, or hamper me in any way before I get to the mainland, everyone on the island dies or becomes my puppets, including all of you. And, finally…"

Knuckles looked like he was about to blow a gasket. "Can you get to the freaking point already? I hate it when villains stretch out their monologues for as long as possible."

Sonic rolled his eyes. "I'll ignore that. Back to the point, though. Tails, I want you."

"Wait, _what?_ " Sticks started shaking her head at top speed as if she had a marble in her ear she was desperately trying to dislodge. "What are you going to do with him? Eat him? Kill him? Stuff him and then keep him with you like some kind of creepy doll?"

"I don't know how you put up with this every day, Tails," Sonic said. "I want your brainpower to be put to good use. It'd do wonders for my plans."

As the others tried to figure out how exactly they could outwit this creature, Sonic finished off what he wanted to. "If you want to comply with my terms, send Tails, as well as all the computers he can carry, to the Gogoba village exactly twenty-four hours from now. And when I say Tails, I mean Tails only- no one else. From there, Tails should lead me to whatever my method of transportation is, and then I'll take control of him for my own purposes."

Eggman stared blankly at the monitor, not quite comprehending the insanity of this all. "And what makes you think we'll do all those terrible things?"

"Because if you don't," Sonic said, smiling in a gruesome fashion as he did, "not only will every single person on this island die or be possessed by me, I'll get to the mainland regardless. I'll make you watch as the world falls to me, you know. It'll be the worst kind of feeling- knowing you screwed up yet unable to do anything to fix it. Stronger people than you have broken upon realizing that."

"Wait…" Tails, unsurprisingly, was confused. "If you're going to take over the world anyway, what's the point of us following your terms?"

"If you do exactly what I say, you, your friends, and all the remaining villagers will be safe from me, as will this island," Sonic said. "Wouldn't do to destroy my home any more than I already have, anyway. Bygone Island will still be free when I'm done taking over, and I'll keep my word on that. And you should know as much as anybody that I'm not one to break promises, Tails."

"Screw that," Shadow snarled. "Let's just kill this stupid thing! We have Tails' computer, why can't we just delete that stupid program?"

"You could try," Sonic simpered, "but since I've spread to more computers, not only would it not kill me, but I would also feel it if you did, and let's just say I would take that as you not complying."

Before anyone could say anything else, Sonic finished off with, "Better hurry to get everything ready for me, unless you want to die, that is. The clock's ticking!" This was followed up with a special type of laugh reserved only for someone who'd gone completely and utterly mad.

Then, whatever Sonic was broadcasting from turned off, turning the monitor back to a plain black screen.

A vein pulsed in Shadow's forehead as he ground his teeth together and clenched his fists. "Now what? The only thing that we had on our side was time, and now we don't even have that anymore! How are we supposed to end this nightmare and not die at the same time?"

"The statistical likelihood of that happening has decreased to approximately eight percent, Shadow the Hedgehog," Metal Sonic drawled. "It is a little lower for you, since you are the biggest threat to his continued existence besides Tails."

"Well? Then what's the eight percent for? What do we have to do to hit that eight percent?" When Metal Sonic didn't immediately reply, Shadow yelled, "Spit it out, you useless bucket of bolts!"

Metal Sonic responded to that by ramming into Shadow hard enough to send him flying backward about five feet before he crumpled in a heap. "Offense taken at that degrading statement. Do not ever insult me or my bolts again, Shadow the Hedgehog."

"Guys!" Tails didn't sound intimidating even on his best days, but he hardly ever raised his voice, so just doing that was enough to catch everyone's attention. "The real threat is still out there, and unless I misheard him, we have less than twenty-four hours before he begins his plan for world conquest. We'll have time to insult each other later! Right now, we need to focus on our common enemy!"

"Tails is right, Shadow," Rouge said. "We need a plan, and we need it fast. How are we supposed to outsmart something that's essentially a computer?"

Knuckles scratched his head, veins popping out as he struggled to think. The cogs in his brain weren't ready to shed their rust yet, leaving him saying, "I don't know."

"No one expected you to, Knuckles," Sticks said. "That's what I'm here for. In my book, all you need to short out a computer is a little water. We should just get all the computers he's on wet, which should stop him from working!"

Rouge shook her head. "Okay, that's not the _worst_ idea I've ever heard, but it still has a lot of problems. One, it doesn't do anything to ensure he can't hurt the villagers, two, he'll see through it in a second, and three, do you seriously think computers are so badly designed that all it takes is a bucket of water to make them shut down instantaneously?"

"Well, I'd like to see you do better, then," Sticks said. "It's still the best plan on the table so far."

"Not for long," Rouge replied. "I have a better plan. I believe that Sonic's powers can only work when he's conscious, because otherwise, he could have killed himself with his own lasers in his sleep."

"If he sleeps at all," countered Tails. "Who knows what all those programs I wrote for my laptop did to him? I mean, I have a lot of theories, but no way to prove any of them."

"I think we can safely assume he needs to sleep at least a little, otherwise he'd have attacked us constantly," Rouge replied. "Our main goal should be to knock him unconscious, and then we can destroy the computers without him being able to interrupt or retaliate."

"There is one problem with your plan, Rouge the Bat," Metal Sonic stated. "I should have revealed this to you and Shadow the Hedgehog earlier, but killing the entity without forcing it out of Sonic the Hedgehog first will almost certainly result in the death of Sonic the Hedgehog. While his life may be worth less than that of the entire world, that method should be used as an absolute last resort."

"Well, that's going to be a problem," Rouge said. "How are we going to force something out of Sonic's brain?"

Everyone else came up with absolutely nothing. However, after about fifteen seconds of furious thinking, Tails' eyes lit up and he came very close to jumping for joy.

"That's it," he said. "Knuckles, Sticks, remember the mind-analyzing gun I built about a year ago?"

Sticks nodded yes. "You mean the one you tested on Sonic, getting you sucked inside his brain, and the only reason you're not still in there is that Amy saw the note you left and used the 'undo' function?"

"Yeah, that one," Tails said. "With that invention handy, we get _inside his head!_ Once we're in there, we can defeat the virus without ever needing to touch a computer, and he'll never see it coming."

"It's a good idea on paper," Shadow said, "but how are we going to get close enough for that thing to work without him realizing what we're doing? Also, how is fighting this thing on its home turf going to help anyone but him?"

"Because," Tails countered, "if we combine it with Rouge's plan, not only will he pose no threat to anyone except us, he won't even have to know we have the thing!"

Knuckles was smiling and nodding with the rest of them, but he wasn't fully convinced. "But… what happens if we lose?"

The half-smile Tails had on fell off his face. "Knuckles, if we lose, it doesn't matter where we do it. If- and hopefully it's just an if- we lose, it won't matter where it happened. He'll start conquering the world, for real this time, and we won't be able to do anything to stop it."

"Well," Shadow said, "I guess we better not lose."

"If this plan I'm cooking up works," said Tails, "we shouldn't have to worry about losing."

"Wait," Eggman said incredulously. "You came up with a whole plan and didn't bother to tell the rest of us? How many kinds of wrong is that, especially at a time like this?"

"Don't worry, I'll spill," said Tails. Then, he turned to face all the others.

"So, this is how it's going to work…"


	20. Unknown Signals

For each member of the group, the tension was so thick that moving forward felt like slogging through quicksand.

Sure, they still had twelve hours left to go before Sonic's deadline hit, but after a few hours' worth of preparation and a few hours of much-needed sleep, none of them could stand to wait for even a second longer. Additionally, they'd taken down a cyborg snake, destroyed each other's inventions and houses, and taken down hundreds of killer robots together- to have their most catastrophic loss ever be due to a time limit would be disgusting.

Tails led them by a considerable distance, carrying his computer as well as several others. Sure, it wasn't ideal to give the villain more ammo to use, but they wanted Sonic to think they were complying, meaning they needed to look the part (even though Tails was concealing his last flash grenade by hiding it under a belt that carried some of the computers). The others were prepared for a potential fight to the death. Rouge had her taser, Sticks wielded her boomerangs, Knuckles had his fists. Metal Sonic's whole purpose was to be a weapon, Eggman held the mind-analyzing gun and several other of Tails' inventions, and Shadow had the knockout powder and a few dozen curse words at the ready.

Earlier, Shadow and Rouge had made one final call to their employers, saying, "Urgent news. If we don't call back within 24 hours, assume there is an imminent global threat on the way to the mainland. We're going in for the kill now." He hung up after that- there was simply nothing more to say.

Once they got within a mile of the ruined Gogoba village, Tails stopped for a second. "You all remember the plan, right?"

"Yep," Knuckles said. "Wait for the signal, and then come in hot."

"That's a bit of an oversimplification," said Tails, "but close enough. One of the laptops I'm bringing will transmit everything back to you guys. Wait for me to pull my little magic trick with the flash grenade, then Shadow, you teleport in and give him a few good hits. Then, we'll hold him off until you get here. From that point on, our primary goal is to knock him unconscious."

"I'm guessing that won't be hard," Shadow said. "With this powder, plus a few good punches, he'll be out like a light in no time."

"Good," replied Tails. "This is as far as you go, I have to talk to him alone for this to work."

The others stopped, leaving Tails to press onward. As he neared the patch of wasteland that used to be a semi-thriving village, the carnage caused his stomach to pitch and heave, his eyes to tear up, his mouth to hang open. Sure, it had been bad just viewing it from a screen, but being there in person added a touch of horror that you just couldn't get anywhere else.

Tails expected to have to search for a while to find Sonic, but that wasn't the case. He was casually leaning on one of only a few remaining upright huts, drumming his fingers against the side of his leg and staring off into the distance like he didn't have a care in the world.

Once Tails got close, though, he turned to face him and smiled his gruesome smile. "Tails. I see you're here."

"Well, why wouldn't I be?" Tails set down all the computers, making sure the one transmitting audio back to the others was as close as possible to him. "This is the most rational option."

"Glad to see you've figured that out," Sonic said. "Now, would you just drop off the computers where I'm standing?"

"Got it, Sonic," Tails replied. Then, he immediately lapsed into a coughing fit. Not a subtle one either- one that made him go red in the face, made his eyes water, made him spit out a glob of something that nobody wanted to know the exact contents of.

"No, Tails," Sonic hissed. " _I_ got it."

Lightning-fast, Sonic dashed forward, colliding with Tails and knocking him to the ground. The computers he'd been carrying went flying, and the flash grenade he'd hidden under his belt hit the ground unused. Sonic was on top of Tails in the second, glaring hungrily and flashing his signature bloody smile.

A few seconds later, both of them were subject to a sudden tingling sensation as a faint ruby glow flared into existence in front of them. In a matter of moments, the glow had disappeared and been replaced with Shadow. He yelled what was presumably some kind of battle cry and threw a fist, but made contact with nothing but empty air. All the powder he'd been holding became airborne, but Sonic was too far out of range to be impacted, and Shadow had to dart backward to make sure he didn't fall prey to its effect.

Sonic started laughing. "You think I wasn't well aware of what you were planning for me? And I thought you two were supposed to be the smart ones of the group!"

Shadow wanted to play dumb for the time being, so he did a double-take. "Wait, what plan? I thought you were choking Tails, so-"

"Cut the crap," Sonic said, still holding down a squirming Tails. Shadow tried to attack him, but Sonic grabbed Tails and picked him up, using him as a human shield, which caused Shadow to swerve out of the way.

"I knew this was coming for hours," Sonic said. "Sure, any creature with average intelligence could assume that something like this would have happened, but being able to hear everything you say was a nice way to confirm it. Really made sure I couldn't trust your word, even if you trusted mine."

Before the others could say anything in response, Sonic waved them off. "Just because I wasn't talking to you doesn't mean I didn't have access to your computer, Tails. When we stopped our little chat, I only turned off the visual aspect of it. I kept the audio running, so I could make sure you would do what I said. Once you got around to discussing how to get rid of me, that was all I needed to hear."

Shadow tried to pull Tails away from Sonic, but his grip wasn't budging, and Tails wasn't making any progress either. Shadow then tried to get behind Sonic and attack him like that, but every time, Sonic whirled around, always making sure that Tails remained between him and Shadow. "You can keep trying all you like, but this isn't going to work, Shadow," Sonic hissed.

Shadow bent for a second to scoop up some of the powder from before, taking pains to keep it away from his face. He didn't want to get too close to Sonic, especially with his hands occupied, but if he could still execute the plan, it meant that they could significantly increase their chances of survival.

Unfortunately for him, Sonic also knew what the powder did. And he wasn't about to fall prey to one of the oldest tricks in the book.

So, instead of merely dodging Shadow's next attack, he darted around him, leaving Shadow with his back to him. Then, when Shadow whirled around to prepare for whatever Sonic's next move was, he got up close and personal with Shadow, kicking him hard in the wrist.

The wrist that was attached to the hand holding the powder.

It made a grotesque noise as Sonic's sneaker made contact with it, and bent in a direction it probably shouldn't have been able to. Red-hot pain shot up Shadow's arm, and his own fist smashed into his nose. Besides adding his fingers and nose to the list of things that felt like they were close to snapping off, he felt himself sharply inhale from the pain, taking quite a bit of powder with it.

That didn't stop Shadow. He threw himself into another attack, but Sonic effortlessly dodged. Tails kept trying to break loose. He even managed to land a decent kick to Sonic's leg, causing him to wince and pause for a second. However, the window wasn't enough for Shadow to do anything in it.

After missing that attack, Shadow caught himself yawning, and tried to slap himself awake for a second. "Crap," he thought. "Not now…"

Sonic went on the offensive, using Tails as a bludgeon of sorts. He missed, but the powder was catching up to Shadow; he could barely stand anymore.

"Got to… got to get out of here," he thought. The creature already had Tails, he didn't want to be added to its arsenal too. After making one last half-hearted attack, he sprinted as fast as he could in the direction he thought his friends were coming from.

He made it approximately a dozen steps before keeling face down in the sand, dead to the world.

* * *

Metal Sonic, who was in the lead for obvious reasons, saw Shadow fall.

"Everyone," he warned, "this was not what we intended to happen. Prepare to fight for your lives, and possibly the lives of Tails the Fox and Shadow the Hedgehog as well."

When the others made it to the outskirts of the destroyed village, it was clear enough what had happened. Most of the Gogobas had been near the village center when Sonic had massacred them, so it had left them with a vast stretch of empty space, which was why Tails had made them wait so far away. Tails, however, seemed to be the worst off in all this. Sonic hadn't bothered with Shadow yet, but he held Tails firmly with both arms, forcing him toward another computer. He was kicking and screaming, but it didn't seem to do anything to Sonic except mildly annoy him.

Once the remaining members got close enough, he turned his head to face them, while still trying to force Tails to touch the computer. If Tails hadn't been thrashing like Rouge had shocked him with her taser, one might have described Sonic's demeanor as being casual.

"Well, I suppose I should have seen this coming as well," Sonic said. "Better speed things up a little bit." Ignoring Tails clawing for his freedom, he swept up the nearest computer and dragged Tails' body across it.

It wasn't over yet, though. Everyone charged at Sonic. Rouge fired her taser, Sticks threw a boomerang, Metal Sonic launched a homing attack, and Knuckles prepared to get closer when his friends were finished. But Sonic merely chuckled at the display. He dodged Rouge's attack and used Tails to block both Sticks' and Metal Sonic's. Tails merely groaned as each one hit him- by now, he looked like someone had gone to town on him with a baseball bat.

That wouldn't be true for long, though.

Like clockwork, a thick stream of crimson mist erupted from the computer in Sonic's possession, moving to engulf Tails just like Tails' own computer had the first time. Tails' eyes bulged out of his head, his movements no longer coordinated, as the horrible stuff entered him through his mouth and nose, even though he was holding the both of them closed as tightly as possible. Tails' eyes showed nothing but pure terror as the process continued, and he was making a noise that would have been a scream if he hadn't been clenching his teeth.

Sticks made a move to try and pull Tails away before the process could finish, but Sonic avoided the attempt in an almost lazy manner. Knuckles, Rouge, and Metal Sonic then tried to pull off the dogpiling move that had worked last time, but Sonic vaulted over all three of them.

Even though Tails had moved during the process, the mist hadn't stopped feeding into him, instead moving with him like it had been attached with a rope. Metal Sonic somehow managed to get behind Sonic and land a solid homing attack on him, but Sonic just tanked it, remaining where he was as Metal Sonic bounced back off, careening into an awkward landing. That didn't do anything to the stuff entering Tails, either.

Sonic started laughing like crazy, which he others had never thought they would have to get used to. "It's too late for you now! Tails is _mine_!"

As the last few wisps entered Tails, Sonic dropped him, allowing him to get to his feet. Everyone seemed to hold their breath for a moment. Tails closed his eyes, tears squeezing their way out of the lids.

In an instant, a wave of pure energy emanated from Tails, rippling outward and slamming into everyone present. Sonic remained unaffected, but the others were hit with a sudden wave of lethargy. Plants were uprooted. The few remaining huts collapsed. A noise like thunder sounded across the entire island.

Then, it all stopped. And Tails opened his eyes once more.

Their irises matched Sonic's perfectly.

"Now that I have a second host," the thing that used to be Tails said, "This should be much easier. But remind me, where were we again?"

Without any prompting, he said, "Oh yeah, we were taking over the village! Now, let's fulfill what we set out to do…"

Shadow submitted first since he was unconscious and couldn't really fight back. Then Knuckles, who went stiff as a board and fell flat on his face. Sticks screeched and clawed at nothing as she went down. Even Eggman, with all his intellect, had no way to keep Sonic and Tails out of his head.

Metal Sonic and Rouge held out a bit longer, the former due to his excellent firewalls and the latter due to sheer determination. However, Metal Sonic had nothing but code working for him, and once it failed, there was nothing he could do. Just like that, Rouge became the lone soldier in a losing battle.

Despite her best efforts, there was no way out of this one. But as she faded away, one last thought burst to the surface of her mind before she gave in.

_I'm sorry, Sonic._


	21. We Meet Again

The heroes had fallen.

The group of them that had tried to attack Sonic stared blankly into the distance, except for Tails, who stood beside him. None of them posed any threat to him anymore, and at this rate, it was going to be a cinch to fulfill his desires.

And yet, he was still dissatisfied with the results. Or, more accurately, Tails was.

"As good an idea as this may be in the long run, taking over this body now was a pretty stupid move," Tails said. "We have to share power equally, since we're clones of each other, more or less. And since I'm not much of a fighter, you've essentially just chopped your energy supply in half for no reason."

Sonic, to no one's surprise, was less than happy to hear that news. "And why couldn't you tell me that before I did this?"

"Part of that's because, once again, the two of us are functionally identical. Not having control of this body before is far more relevant, though," Tails added.

Sonic growled, then started muttering under his breath. "How does that have anything to do with anything?"

"Because," Tails said, "while we have shared abilities, we also gain the skills of whomever we possess, but they're exclusive to that single host. For example, just because you can run at a million miles an hour doesn't mean that I can. By that logic, I have much higher intelligence than you do. If I'd been the primary host, I would have been able to see the flaws in your plan."

"Well, good to know for next time, then," Sonic said. "On a related note, doesn't it feel weird to essentially be talking to yourself?"

"Based on all the knowledge I've gained, our definitions of 'weird' are pretty different, Sonic," Tails said. "I can keep calling you Sonic, right?"

"Obviously," Sonic said. "Now, let's get started before they try anything cute."

"Hold up," Tails said. "Is it just me, or do you have a massive headache right now? Because I feel like a marble's rolling around in my skull."

"No, it's just you. Probably coming from your mind trying to hold Tails down," Sonic said. "I can help with that, though. Remember the mind entry ray that they were talking about earlier? You can just transfer his consciousness into here-" he pointed to himself as he said this- "and I can subdue both of them."

Tails wasn't fully convinced. "You sure you can take on Tails as well?"

"I'll be fine," Sonic said. "Two can't be that much harder to deal with than one."

Sonic strode over to the others to get the mind entry ray. Eggman still limply clutched the device, but since he was incapacitated, it was child's play for Sonic to pry his fingers off of it, one by one, and then claim it as his own. The interface for it, luckily for him, wasn't too complex. The end it fired out of was clearly marked, and every button had an easy-to-read label. One read "SELECT YOUR TARGET," another, "SELECT ANALYSIS POINT OF FOCUS," and finally, the big red button at the back end of the device read, "UNDO LAST ACTION."

Sonic picked it up and examined the device, but before he could do anything else, Tails grabbed his arm to get his attention.

"Wait," Tails said. "I missed something. Since I'm in his head too, won't that mean I get transferred with him?"

"That would make sense," said Sonic. "My guess is that this takes everything in your head and puts it into mine, so it's just common sense that both things in there come along for the ride. Although, having the brains and the brawn in one place is probably a pretty good idea, don't you think?"

"There's a fifty-fifty shot," countered Tails. "Depending on how a couple of key factors play out, it could go either way."

"That's a risk I'm willing to take," Sonic said. "I'll watch the two of them and make sure they can't break free, and you control the body. I mean, honestly-" he gestured towards Tails- "That body doesn't seem like it can do much in a fight. I bet you'd love to take mine out for a test drive."

"Yes, I would," Tails said. "Now, let's get this show on the road."

With that, Sonic powered on the mind ray via a simple switch, and then (with some instructions given by Tails) managed to prepare himself to send Tails inside his head. Once that was finished, he pointed the device at himself, firing it at his head for good measure.

There was no beam of light, no violent flashing, no theatrics, no anything. One second, Tails' eyes were bright and full of malicious intelligence, and the next, they were empty. Shortly afterward, Sonic cradled his head as a sudden jolt of pain rocked it, followed by an even stronger wave of energy that stiffened his posture, erased his tiredness, and even sated his hunger. Once more, he had all the power that he'd ever need.

Suddenly, he heard a voice inside his head, probably belonging to his semi-clone. "I'm here, can you just take Tails off my hands? I don't want him breaking free in here."

"Will do," he said to no one. Then, he retreated inside his mind (or the one he'd taken over, anyway), and the world around him blurred and vanished.

* * *

Tails had been trapped inside his head. Literally.

He didn't quite know how this was even possible, but that wasn't the important part right now. What _was_ important, however, was that he'd essentially been turned into a prisoner of war.

His legs had been bound together so he couldn't run, his tails were pinned behind his back so he couldn't take off, and he'd been blindfolded so he had no idea of where he was going. Somehow, the monsterthat had taken him prisoner was carrying him, presumably to lock him up somewhere.

"We'll be transferred soon," the creature hissed.

Tails might as well have been a rag doll with the range of motions he could make, but the thing hadn't gagged him, so he could still talk. "What the hell does that mean?"

His captor merely smirked. "You'll find out soon enough."

Before he could say anything else, the world around the two of them began shaking. It wasn't like an earthquake, though- if that was the case, it would have been noisy and filled with the sound of screaming. Here, it was devoid of noise, which somehow was even more unsettling.

Then, there were a few seconds of utter blackness, combined with the feeling of being launched forward at an impossible speed. Tails' eyes were forced shut, and it felt like something was going to rip off in the wind.

However, it stopped just as soon as it started, leaving them in a landscape not unlike the one they'd just left. The key difference here was that they weren't alone anymore. Here, another creature, this one resembling the ruined Sonic, stood nearby, smiling just like always.

"Well," it said, "It looks like the mind gun thingy worked like it was supposed to."

"Of course it did," Tails' captor replied. "And it's not called the 'mind gun thingy,' by the way. It's a mind analysis device, or at least it was supposed to be."

"Whatever." The creature extended his arms out. "Just give me what you came to drop off. I'll dump him in the holding chamber, you can take over the controls for the time being."

Tails was exchanged between the two of them, despite his best efforts to break loose, and Tails' former guard was grinning wider than Sonic at a chili dog festival. "Thanks for that. I'll get everything ready for you. Trust me, you won't be disappointed!" With that, he flew off, leaving the real Tails alone with the mockery of Sonic.

Neither of them said anything for a while after that. In between escape attempts, Tails took notice of his surroundings, in case he was somehow able to make a break for it later. There weren't many landmarks to go by, and the only real color present was red, but it wasn't just a barren landscape of nothingness. A handful of things that looked like wilted trees materialized as the two of them drew near and then disappeared as they passed. On occasion, stalagmites jutted out of the ground, twisted in such ways they looked like bizarre modern art sculptures. There was even something that once might have been a lake, but now it was nothing more than a huge crater.

Unfortunately for Tails, they arrived at their destination all too soon: something that looked like a gigantic block of concrete that had been painted crimson to match the ground. It had no windows, and the only way to get in or out was an impenetrable-looking black door. However, it opened as soon as the two of them got close, revealing the room inside. Sure, it was what Tails had expected- nothing more than a bare expanse of concrete with a single flickering light bulb dangling overhead. The room's contents, however, were far more surprising.

Sonic, and the real one this time, was chained to the wall, the thick metal links binding his arms, legs, chest, and neck, preventing him from moving more than a few feet away or even lying down. His eyes were dim and looked half-dead, and his only effort to escape seemed to be him feebly clawing for purchase with his right arm. Tails would have cried out after seeing his best friend in such a condition, but he knew that now was not the time.

"I'm back," Sonic's imitation said. "And looky here! I brought your friend this time!"

Sonic turned his head to look at Tails but otherwise showed no reaction.

"Come on! Don't be a buzzkill," the creature said. "Cry, start cursing at me, do something! It doesn't matter what!"

Sonic still didn't respond. Even his movement had stopped, and he'd begun to slump against the wall, a perfect image of perpetual misery.

"Okay, then. Be that way! It's not going to change anything," the creature hissed. Then, he got to work putting Tails in the same position as Sonic. The walls of the room had seven sets of chains, including the one that Sonic currently occupied. Thus, picking which one to use for Tails merely revolved around how to keep the two of them as far apart as possible. Thus, he picked the one in the opposite corner as Sonic and started fastening Tails in.

Just like Sonic, his arms, legs, chest, and neck were each bound separately. However, the creature also made sure to tie Tails' namesakes in a knot around the chain holding his left leg, just to make sure that was taken out of the equation. The knot felt fairly well-constructed, but Tails wanted to hold off on experimenting with that until they weren't being actively watched.

When the process was done, the creature turned to leave. "You'll be out of here soon. But by then, it'll already be too late. Enjoy the last few hours of your sanity!" The creature slammed the door behind him after that, cackling like a lunatic.

As soon as the laughter faded out, Sonic finally began to show a reaction. He stirred, pulled himself to a standing position, and turned his head to face Tails. "Tails? Is that really you?"

Tails sighed. "Unfortunately, yes."

"Oh, no," Sonic said. "The virus got you, too?"

Tails could barely bring himself to answer, but he did anyway. "That's also a yes. I get that you aren't super excited to see me here."

"Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to see you again," Sonic said. Then, he turned away, slumping against the wall once more.

"I just wish our reunion was under better circumstances than this."


	22. Sparks of Fury

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter contains disturbing content that pushes the boundaries of the T rating.
> 
> You have been warned.

It had taken a few hours, but Rouge had finally regained consciousness.

But where was she? From what she could see, it looked like she'd moved miles since she'd gone under. Instead of the destroyed huts and smoke on the horizon that she'd seen last, now they were in some other location, although how or why, she couldn't figure out yet.

The first thing she did was try to brush her face since it was itching like crazy and was coated with leaves and dirt from her fall.

But her arm refused to respond to her input. No matter how much she struggled, she was stuck in a standing position, and nothing she did caused any of her limbs to move even an inch.

She tried to say, "What's happening?" However, she couldn't move her mouth enough to enunciate anything clearly, so it just came out as a low moaning noise.

A chorus of other moans sounded alongside her. She couldn't turn her head to figure this out for sure, but it appeared that all her allies were in the same situation she was. Even Eggman's distinctive groaning (although she didn't want to know why she was able to single it out as being from him) was part of the noise.

As Rouge struggled to break out of her paralysis, Sonic strode into her field of view, dripping smugness from every pore. "Well," he said, "we're right back where we started."

He dashed over to her after that, physically turning her around a full 180 degrees, revealing the village- or what was left of it, anyway. Only a few scattered dwellings remained, and even those looked like poorly-crafted dollhouses: slapdashed together, leaning to one side and looking like they would fall apart at the slightest touch.

The villagers appeared to be gathered in a clump not twenty yards away, all of them staring lifelessly at the group of downed heroes. Nobody talked, or moved, or did much of anything, for that matter. Rouge noticed Amy among the masses, standing near the front, eyes wide open and empty just like everyone else's. She would have started shrieking with rage if her mouth could move more than a fraction of a millimeter in any direction.

All the others faced the same direction at this point, and while Rouge couldn't see their expressions, she knew they weren't going to be smiling. As Sonic stood between the two groups, waving his arms around and speaking with emphasis like he was about to perform a magic trick for his captive audience, Rouge began throwing herself (figuratively of course) as hard as she could against the invisible force keeping her in place, but to no avail.

"You're being a delightful audience," Sonic said. "To the fine young woman over there with the pink fur-" he pointed to Amy (leaning heavily on a stick), although she either couldn't or wouldn't respond- "I'm saving you for the closing act, and that'll be a showstopper. However, to everyone else, I'd like to call you up for my greatest trick!" Then, his signature sadistic smile worked its way onto his face. "I've given it the fitting name of 'Cutting the Strings.'"

Sonic effortlessly slipped into the crowd, emerging a few seconds later while dragging a random villager along with him. Except for being slightly overweight and having glasses, he didn't appear to have anything special about him- maybe that was why he'd been chosen to go first.

"I have my volunteer," Sonic said, "now, let's showcase our trick!"

Sonic snapped his fingers, which was a bit of an accomplishment in and of itself, considering that he was still wearing gloves. For a few seconds, nothing appeared to happen, but the villager suddenly began to vibrate in place. He let loose a strangled moan, then the lights in his eyes went out as he collapsed in the dirt.

Shadow held firm, but the others screamed in a potent combination of rage and terror. Rouge soon heard the sounds of grunting as the others straining to escape their bonds. However, Sonic merely laughed at their attempts. "Don't try and leave me yet! This show is far from finished! Trust me, that was only the first subject, many more are yet to come!"

Shadow spat something out that was probably supposed to be a long string of curse words. Sonic ignored him, however, relishing in the fear in the others' eyes and their futile escape efforts. He winked at the smaller group before turning back to the villagers, a terrible glee in his eyes.

"Now, who would like to volunteer for my next demonstration?"

* * *

Tails rarely saw the benefits of being small, but it was paying off here.

While the chains binding him and Sonic to the wall had proven themselves very difficult to break and even harder to tear out of the wall, there was also a critical oversight in their construction- they were all the same size. While they still worked fine in keeping Sonic pinned, since he was somewhere near the average for the village in terms of both weight and height, Tails was one of its smallest inhabitants. Thus, the cuffs keeping his arms and legs pinned were just a hair too large, which allowed him a degree of freedom that Sonic was denied.

Tails had been rocking back and forth for several minutes now, trying to figure out how he'd be able to exploit his only advantage and fast. While the fit of his cuffs wasn't as perfect as that of Sonic's, he still risked losing fingers or breaking something if he tried to free his hands wrong. So what was he going to do?

Suddenly, a possible solution hit him like a tidal wave. His tails were tied in a knot now, so they were completely useless. But if he was able to bend himself into a position where he could untie them, he might be able to use them as a lubricant to slide his hands free, or if he was really lucky, as a lockpick to open the rest of the chains. The odds of it working were nigh-nonexistent, but he didn't have time to lose or any better ideas.

He got to work right away. The chain around his neck made bending down excruciating, so he instead leaned back to let the one around his chest pick up the slack. It then proceeded to dig into his spine, but that was infinitely better than the alternative.

With trembling fingers, he began to blindly reach for his tails. He caught nothing but air on his first attempt when the pain stopped him from reaching any further. The second try fared a little better, ending in him grabbing the chain before the pain spiked again, leading him to try a different angle.

On his third try, he felt something furry. He didn't celebrate yet, knowing the hardest part was yet to come, but he smiled despite his position being less than comfortable.

The knot was too secure for merely pulling on it to do anything, but that was to be expected. After a few excruciating seconds, Tails had managed to contort himself into a position that allowed him to both start making progress on the knot and see what he was doing. He worked as quickly as possible, wanting to be done before one of the viruses decided to drop in.

It took an immense amount of effort, and Tails nearly dislocated his arm several times in the process. But eventually, he'd loosened the knot enough that he could untangle his namesakes without touching them any further.

Too bad that it was all for nothing.

Tails had just started trying to jam his namesakes in between his hands and the cuffs locking him in place when the door opened once more, revealing the imitation of Sonic that had taken him here. Even though he appeared to be simmering with rage on the outside, his demeanor could only be described as casual.

"You really think I didn't plan ahead for you trying to escape?" The creature said this like it couldn't care less. "Don't worry about that. This is my territory, you know- I have eyes everywhere."

Tails had to have known something like this was coming- with Eggman, maybe you could have expected him to make that big an oversight, but this thing was far too competent for that. It didn't stop him from being disappointed, however- his hopes had just vanished without a trace.

"Well, my friend seems to have everything under control," the monster hissed, "so it looks like we'll be alone for a little while. I might as well have some fun with you while I'm here." With that, he roughly grabbed Tails arm, eliciting a yelp.

Sonic, who hadn't even acknowledged that the virus had entered the room yet, stirred to life for a second. "Wait… what are you…"

"Something I've wanted to do for a long time," the creature chuckled. "This insolent little kid has been the bane of my existence ever since I was created. Why shouldn't I pass up an opportunity to return the favor?"

Tails blanched, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks. Sonic stumbled to his feet, staring helplessly at what was about to occur. He hoped it wouldn't be anything too serious. He was wrong.

For a few seconds, it didn't seem like anything was actually happening. But that's when Tails' resolve broke again and he started screaming. When the creature pulled its hand away from Tails, it revealed singed and smoking fur, as well as burned skin where the fur had come off. There was definitely going to be a nasty welt there, but that was the least of Tails' problems at the moment.

"You see," the monster said, "this is why you don't cross me. Anyone who does- well, you'll find out soon enough now, won't you?"

Tails tried to move his limbs to places that the creature couldn't reach, but he was still chained up, so there was only so much he could do. And what he could do wasn't enough. With ease, Sonic's impostor seized a new limb, this time a leg, and repeated the same process. Tails kept screaming, even though no amount of reaction would change the suffering he was going through.

The real Sonic, however, wasn't taking this lying down. Instead of just watching, he was actively struggling, attempting to break the chains with every fiber of his being. Unfortunately, they were just too strong, and if Sonic attempted to run fast enough to actually rip them loose, he risked breaking his neck.

As Tails kept shrieking with everything he had in him, his tormentor started laughing, just as expected. The creature increased his torment in intensity, turning up the heat so high that not only had it burnt through the fur already and started on the flesh, a small fire had started and was quickly spreading up Tails' leg. Tails had lost all control of his body at this point, flailing in every direction at once as the torture continued.

After what felt like an eternity but was actually thirty seconds at most, Tails' leg was released. Not that it did much good, anyway. He would have been bleeding violently if the area hadn't already been cauterized. However, that could barely even be called a silver lining, since the area now resembled a piece of meat that'd just been taken off the grill.

Everything Tails saw was hazy now due to his pain, but he could still tell that his captor was enjoying this immensely. He licked his lips, eyes swirling with sadistic pleasure, before smirking and saying, "And now for that pretty face of yours!"

"No," Tails weakly whispered. "Please…"

His begging was ignored by the creature, who brushed Tails' arms aside before placing both hands on his cheeks, locking his head in place. Then, the lasers were turned back on again.

Tails didn't even have the energy or will to scream anymore. All he could do was cry, but all his tears kept evaporating before they hit the ground. That didn't stop the mockery of Sonic from laughing like an absolute maniac. By now, though, Tails knew that it was all this thing could and would ever be.

"Nothing can stop me now!" The creature shouted this in Tails' face with glee before resuming his laughter and cranking up the temperature once more.

Suddenly, a loud, grating screech filled the room. Tails' captor shut off the heat in an instant, whipping his head around the room to try and figure out what was happening. It didn't take long.

While trying to get at the creature tormenting his best friend, Sonic had come up with one final, crazy idea to try and break free. He'd twisted himself into a nearly-impossible position, but that wasn't the most insane part of the plan.

He'd gotten his legs up to near top speed, even though he wasn't moving an inch. Instead, he was rubbing the cuffs on his legs at top speed against the one on his neck, trying to wear them down. And based on the shards of white-hot metal that began to fall off in sparking shavings, it appeared to be working.

"Oh, no you don't," the demon hissed, turning his attention to Sonic. Tails whimpered, curling into the closest thing to a ball he could achieve with the chains while cradling his burns the best he could.

Grinning ear to ear, the creature fired a laser at Sonic. Sonic started screaming as well, but his pace only got faster, and larger and larger pieces of mangled metal went flying as he kept making progress.

"Damn you!" Now the demented replica was firing from both hands, and his malevolent smirk had vanished. Sonic's screeching only grew louder and more frenzied, but still, he didn't stop, even as the fur on his neck and chest began to catch fire.

"I will not- be bested by- AAAAAHHHH!" The monster fired his lasers at their maximum power, desperate to stop Sonic as he lost the ability to form words, while Sonic screamed high and long as he gave it everything he had-

Then suddenly, he switched positions again. He held both his arm chains in front of opposite lasers, and they melted in a second. With his arms free and the neck and leg chains near useless, the only thing keeping him bound was the one around his chest. However, one burst of speed later, all that remained of his restraining device was a makeshift belt and what appeared to be some bracelets with jangly attachments. The flames on Sonic's fur died down in a hurry once he slapped a gloved hand over the raw, ugly wounds, but the ones in his eyes still burned with utter rage.

Before his imitator could say or do a single thing in response, Sonic had him on the ground, hands around his neck. "It looks like I need to set you straight, you monster. If you'd just been doing that to me, it wouldn't have been like this. I might not even have escaped."

Then, Sonic made a move like he was trying to strangle the creature, before throwing him against the wall with strength usually reserved for Knuckles. As the monster sprang to his feet, preparing for battle, Sonic's eyes lit up so brightly they almost seemed to be glowing.

"But _no one_ ," Sonic growled, "hurts Tails like that in front of me and gets away with it."

In one swift move, Sonic rammed into his replica before he could charge up the lasers again, sending him crumpling to the floor, unable to get up. However, instead of finishing him off, Sonic merely pinned him down, burning a hole through him with his stare.

"Tell me how to free Tails, now, or I'll make you wish you were dead," Sonic hissed.

Since Sonic was practically strangling him, it took a few seconds to respond, but eventually, he choked something out. "Keys… in shoe…" That was as far as he got before he went unconscious.

Sonic wasted no time, ripping off both his replica's shoes, shaking the key out of the left one. In a second, he'd begun popping open Tails' bonds, and six pops later, the two of them were together again.

Tails tried to wrap Sonic in a bone-crushing hug, but Sonic brushed him off. "Look, buddy, I'm all for having a sweet, sappy reunion, but can we save it for when our lives aren't in danger?"

"Good call," Tails said.

Not to mention, it appeared that they had a much bigger concern at the moment. Either Sonic's replica had regained consciousness in a hurry or he'd been faking it the whole time, but regardless of which, he was on his feet again. "This isn't over," he hissed, before dashing out of the room as fast as he could, leaving a Sonic-shaped hole in the wall in the process.

"Crap," Sonic said. "He's probably going to warn your version of the virus about what's happening. We have to move fast."

For once, Tails couldn't come up with an idea. "Well, what do we do now?"

"Easy," Sonic said. As soon as he'd revealed his idea, Tails nearly facepalmed about what an obvious idea he'd been missing.

"We need to call in some backup."


	23. The Terrors of Headspace

Tails knew that flying to Sonic's destination was not an option, but that didn't make being carried by him any less painful.

Sonic was trying to take it easy this time around, keeping to a leisurely sixty miles an hour, but the wind still sliced Tails worse than any knife ever could, and it was a miracle he hadn't blacked out from the agony yet. Sonic, despite his pain, was too focused to have the urge to stop.

After what felt like far too long, they finally reached their destination, and Sonic set Tails down as gently as possible. On the horizon loomed their target: a brightly glowing, almost formless structure, from which tendrils shot out further than either of them could follow. The whole thing pulsed to a rhythm neither of them could hear, and within its luminous walls, they could make out the forms of their respective viruses moving around.

"Wait here," Sonic told Tails. "I'll get this under control."

"Hold on," Tails said. "Not to be rude, but are you nuts? You can't take both of them on alone!"

"I won't know if I never try," Sonic replied, "and it's our best shot. They're controlling my body from there, no doubt about it. If I can get in and subdue both of them, or at least stall them long enough to gain control for a few seconds, I can use the mind ray they kept talking about to get everyone else in here. Then, we can take them down for good."

"I'll help," Tails said. "There has to be something I can do."

"Tails, you're too injured to fight," Sonic said. "If I don't make it and you're still in there, they're capturing you again, and probably adding you to the list of their victims. If you're out here and I die, at least you have a chance at escaping, even if it's still pretty slim."

Before Tails could say another thing, Sonic waved goodbye for what might have been the final time to his best friend in the world. "Wish me luck."

Then, in a streak of blue, he was gone.

* * *

Tails' replica knew something was up the second he saw his speedy counterpart dash into the room, shoeless and waving his arms around like a madman.

When Sonic's imitation stopped, he only could choke out two breathless words. "They escaped!"

The creature even turned away from the controls to viciously growl at his semi-duplicate. "Sonic, are you kidding me? You had one job! And don't bother trying to spin some stupid tale about how it's not your fault and blah blah blah. I don't give a damn what happened in there, you still failed at the _one freaking task_ I expected even you to get right."

"Don't worry," stammered the now-cowering Sonic imitation. "It won't happen again!"

The mockery of Tails merely groaned. "And what happened to your shoes?"

"I'd prefer not to get into detail about that," Sonic's replica replied. "The point is, they're probably on their way, and we need to be able to fight them off!"

"We should be fine," his counterpart said. "The two of us have more ranged attacks than either of them do, and they might pull the sappy 'you can still be saved' thing and not kill us when they think they have us beat. I wouldn't be too worried."

"I still am," Sonic's virus replied. "I already know what a crazy Sonic is capable of, and it's not going to be fun when he unleashes it on us."

Suddenly, there was a noise akin to a small explosion, and the real Sonic barreled into the room, a crazed look in his eyes and a snarl that spooked even the viruses locked on his face.

"Look who's back," he hissed. "And with no chains to save your sorry butts this time."

Tails' clone knew better than to let this fight degrade into a trash-talking competition, so he shushed the other creature before yelling, "You attack head-on, I'll try to blindside him!"

After dashing out of the way of Sonic's first Spin Dash, his virus asked, "Well, then who's taking the controls?"

"We'll figure that out _after_ he's dead," Tails' replica replied. "Make yourself useful and help me kill him!"

"With pleasure," Sonic's replica said. And with that, he changed up his first Spin Dash, screeching his battle cry to the heavens.

* * *

When Elise finally emerged into the light, she didn't know if she was alive or dead.

She'd been trapped in what felt like an empty void for an indeterminate amount of time, alongside the rest of the village. It initially looked like they were just being kept, until the first one disappeared, that was. One by one, they kept screeching in agony before vanishing, and with every one, Elise hoped she wouldn't be next.

Then, just as quickly as it had started, it stopped, and the scene was gone in a blinding flash.

In an instant, she found herself curled in the fetal position, uncomfortable but very much alive. However, when she got to her feet, it was clear that more people had been killed in that room- they were still slumped over, bodies twisted into seemingly-impossible shapes, eyes dull and listless. None of them were bleeding or missing limbs, but that didn't stop the scene from causing Elise to bend over and start vomiting.

Several waves of nausea later, she didn't feel much better, but at least she had a clear grasp of her surroundings. A good chunk of the remaining villagers had gotten up, and those who were still down all looked like they'd be there until someone else moved them. Sonic and all the others were standing in a cluster about twenty meters away, breathing and blinking being the only indications that they were still alive.

That changed quickly. As she watched, all of them except for Sonic and Tails snapped back to life. They each whipped their heads around, probably going through the same sensual overload that Elise had just broken free from.

Knuckles, Sticks, and Eggman all looked queasy, but Shadow, Rouge, and Metal Sonic had gotten through the forceful warp without a problem. As Eggman leaned over, hoping not to paint the ground with his sizable lunch, Shadow stared at the scene with a calculating eye. "Wait… are we back?"

"It sure looks like it," Rouge replied. "So, now that we're here, what's the plan?"

Then, Sonic caught them all off guard by throwing one hell of a punch.

At himself.

He went flying backwards, knocking Tails' limp body over, but Tails didn't even try to push him off. He just lay there as Sonic rolled and thrashed and threw punches at nothing.

The crowd started backing away, but Elise couldn't break eye contact with the creature, even as it kept moving closer to her. By the time she'd finally managed to work up the urge to run, it was almost too late.

Before, Sonic's attacks had all been physical, which meant unless you were really close to him, you'd be fine. However, the turning point came when he was less than ten feet away: his hands became shrouded with that terrifying red glow, growing brighter and brighter as Elise stood rooted to the spot until he fired-

And fortunately, missed Elise by mere inches. That was enough to break her out of her trance with the rest of the crowd, and they all abandoned any sense of order and started to flee screaming. Elise ran away in a blind terror, dodging left and right at pure random, not even caring that her shoes were probably ruined and her legs searing.

She didn't want to be the hero here. All she wanted to do was survive.

* * *

Inside Sonic's head, the pandemonium was even worse.

Used to big, slow creatures and the fodder Eggman threw his way, Sonic wasn't very prepared for multiple beings as intelligent and powerful as this tag-teaming on him. While he wasn't outright losing yet, he most certainly wasn't winning.

Both of his adversaries fired lasers at once, forcing Sonic to leap out of the way before launching a homing attack of his own. Tails' virus smirked and flew higher, causing Sonic to miss. It was all he could do to land on his feet.

Tails' replica dive-bombed him on the spot. Sonic dashed forward to avoid the attack, but his attacker managed to pull up before he crash-landed and prepared himself for a second attempt. At the same time, his own duplicate Spin Dashed right at him, forcing Sonic to jump.

"That's it," Tails' duplicate yelled. "Sonic, do that again! I'll be able to hit him while he's in the air!"

To try and counter that, Sonic started up a Spin Dash of his own, slamming into his replica as hard as he could. Both of them growled, struggling to accelerate enough to overpower their foe, neither of them willing to give an inch. It would have gone that way a lot longer, but Tails had fired up yet another laser, aiming at- and hitting- Sonic.

The real Sonic.

In a split second, his side was seared in a perfect circle, a feat Sonic would have been impressed by if the creature hadn't been trying to murder him. With no other options, Sonic changed his direction to get out from in front of his duplicate, who surged forward and nearly crashed into a wall before stopping himself.

Sonic spared a moment to glance up at Tails' clone. The real Tails would have been tired after so long in the air, but this thing didn't seem bothered. He didn't have time to ask himself any questions about it, though, as Tails attempted to dive-bomb him again, coming much closer this time but still missing.

Sonic coasted to a stop, panting heavily, his side stinging, his legs burning. He knew he had to end this soon. If he kept tiring like this, either he'd be forced to surrender or he'd be killed with a lucky attack, and his opponents weren't running out of energy anytime soon.

He threw his all into another Spin Dash while his clone was still recovering from the last one, but it was dodged with ease. Sonic couldn't slow down in time, and he crashed hard into the wall.

He somehow managed to stand up, but everything hurt. When his two adversaries fired their lasers again, he barely managed to dodge, the soles of his sneakers becoming singed in the process. He landed hard, barely avoiding spraining an ankle on impact.

Sonic only wanted a split second to catch his breath. Unfortunately for him, a split second was all it took to end the fight. His clone blindsided him, sending him flying across the room at an almost painful speed. When he hit the floor, he'd fallen from so high he bounced a few times before rolling to a stop.

Every cell in Sonic's sort-of-brain was screaming in agony. His vision was tinged with black. He couldn't even form words.

That didn't stop his clones from charging up to him, sinister grins etched on their faces. Sonic held up his hands in a feeble defense, but it wasn't going to save him this time.

It seemed like it was all over.

Until suddenly, it wasn't.

It started as nothing more than a light thumping sound, which caused everyone to whip their heads around trying to figure out what the heck was going on. Then, Sonic saw the cause. At that moment, the scariest scenarios Sonic had thought would come out of this started to play out in his head.

"Hello, _friends_ ," Tails said in a tired voice, having just taken the controls. "Remember me?"

* * *

With the way things were going, Sonic was at serious risk of killing himself or someone else, even though Amy was the only member of the crowd who had remained behind.

His movements had only become more violent the longer his apparent seizure continued, and now he was firing lasers in random directions that the others had to dodge constantly. He'd even begun making noise, too- a high-pitched, strangled scream that sounded like a newborn trapped in a blender.

Rouge had shocked him with her taser multiple times, trying to get him to stay still, but that wound up doing absolutely nothing. His lasers made it so that no one wanted to risk restraining him, but it looked more and more like they'd have no other choice.

But just as Shadow prepared to charge in and hold him down, it all stopped. It wasn't even a gradual stop- one second, he was screeching and flailing and firing lasers, and the next, he'd fallen dead still.

Knuckles, somehow, was the first to address the scenario. "Well, what do we do now?"

To everyone's surprise, Sonic was the first one to respond. To their even bigger surprise, what he said was, "Guys! It's Tails! Do you have the- OW!" Sonic flung himself backwards, hitting his head hard. The ground was fairly soft, but that didn't decrease the odds of him getting a nasty concussion. Before he even got up, he added, "Do you have the mind gun?"

"No, you do," Eggman answered. Then, he turned to the others. "Wait, is that actually Tails?"

Sonic stood up in a rush, almost toppling over again in the process. "Yes, it is, I'm fighting for control in here! I just need to get you here to help!"

"Wait," Sticks said. "What are you talking about?"

"No time," Sonic added. He quickly pressed two buttons on the mind gun still clutched tightly in his hand, then pointed the device at Sticks. "Stay still!"

"Wait, why do you need me to-" Sticks' question was abruptly cut off as the device fired, hitting her with a beam of light an eerily similar shade to the lasers. There was no flash of light afterwards, no boom, not even a confirmation from the device. The only indication that it worked was that Sticks was no longer moving.

Sonic jumped about eight feet straight up after that, landing flat on his face. His nose broke with a sickly crunching sound, however, the gun wasn't damaged, and Sonic continued to talk even as his mouth filled with dirt. "I just warped her consciousness into here! I'm going to do the same to you!"

Eggman raised his hand, even though that was utterly pointless. "Do we have a say in this?"

"No," Sonic said, shortly before firing at him as well, repeating the process. "As for everyone else, they need to look for the glowing structure! It's-" he was cut off once more for a few seconds with a groan of pain and a violent lurch from Sonic- "It's impossible to miss!"

With four more quick bursts of fire from the device, the others had all been hit, and they'd joined Sticks and Eggman in Sonic's head, prepared to fight to the death.

Meanwhile, Amy, the only one still left in her own body, stared at the scene with tearful eyes.

"Come on, guys," she whispered. "Please come back to me…"


	24. True Heroes Don't Come Home

When Metal Sonic had been warped into Sonic's mind, he found himself alone.

The device wasn't able to control exactly _where_ you were dropped when you got hit, so for all he knew, he could have been fifty miles away at the time. Not that fifty miles was a problem for him, but it wasn't exactly convenient to already have wasted a lot of energy just getting to the fight.

The "impossible to miss" label that Tails had applied to where he was supposed to go was an accurate one, though. Not too far away, a brightly glowing, shapeless structure lit up the surrounding landscape, occasionally pulsing and sending streaks of luminous substance into the not-quite-sky. Metal's face wasn't capable of displaying emotions, but if it were, he'd be smiling.

Metal turned on his thrusters, preparing to get himself there as fast as his energy would allow.

Less than a second later, the area had one robot fewer to its name.

* * *

Rouge lucked out- her landing spot had been only a short distance away from the structure Tails had mentioned. However, a feeling of dread washed over her when she realized her taser was gone.

It wasn't like she was scared of hand-to-hand combat, but getting up close and personal to something that could melt your hands off with no warning wasn't her idea of a standard combat scenario. That probably applied to the others as well- they wouldn't have any weapons to make the fight easier.

"Well, Metal Sonic, Knuckles, and Shadow probably won't be too bothered," she thought, "but I'm pretty confident Eggman might have a heart attack once he realizes he doesn't have any machines to work with him."

The image was hysterical for about half a second. After that, she remembered there just wasn't time for anything except getting to her destination, and fast.

Taking off, she flew for the glowing mass, knowing that every second counted.

* * *

Sonic was an optimist by nature, but even he had to admit that if things could be going worse, he didn't see how.

Tails had managed to drag the attention of the viruses away from him for long enough so that he could semi-recover. That was fine. If what he'd just heard was correct, he'd even managed to get the others inside his head like they wanted. That was also fine. Unfortunately, all that came at a cost.

And that cost was almost certainly going to be all of their lives. Which was anything but fine.

Shortly after Tails finished delivering his final message, the viruses had managed to retake the controls, leading Sonic to take Tails and escape to right outside the room. With one of them running the controls, they had a slight advantage now of it being a one-on-one fight. However, even if they won the fight, if the viruses had their way, they were unsure if they'd even have bodies to return to. Even worse, they could decide "screw it," and incinerate Sonic as a last-ditch effort, killing them all in the process, although it did mean the threat would ultimately be defeated.

Tails' virus having all the cunning of his real-life counterpart didn't help. Everyone knew what his goal was, and despite their best efforts, he was doing an excellent job keeping Sonic and Tails from getting past him. He rationed his energy, only using lasers when he absolutely had to. Sonic's attacks got more and more desperate and crazy, but nothing appeared to be working.

Sonic's virus called out the door, "Almost there! I just need, like, fifteen more seconds!"

Tails' virus turned to respond, but in those few seconds, something rammed into him from behind, nearly knocking him out of the sky. To his attacker's displeasure, he managed to regain composure about six feet off the floor. However, it bought Sonic time to get past.

As Sonic Spin Dashed into his corrupted clone, sending him away from the controls, Tails looked up to see Rouge floating above both him and his virus. She blew a kiss downward, saying, "Two can play that game, sweetheart!"

Rouge almost instantly regretted saying that. Less than two seconds later, the lasers sent her way nearly seared her wings off. As it was, she managed to dive low and get behind both of the others once more.

Once the lasers got close, Tails desperately tried to take off, even though spinning his tails that fast caused his muscles to clench in agony, just like before. Somehow, he got off the ground and cleared the sizzling beams of death, but nothing more. He touched down within seconds, feeling like every muscle in his back had been tied in a knot.

Then, the area got loud. As Sonic and his impostor continued to duke it out inside, his other impostor appeared out of seemingly nowhere. And he'd brought company. Knuckles and Sticks leapt into action right away, screaming nonsense, while Eggman appeared to be taking his time, unsure what to do without all his faithful mechs at his command.

After hitting Tails' virus with a homing attack, Metal Sonic stated, "I found them on my way here, so I brought them to the point of interest."

Amidst the chaos, Rouge managed to yell back, "Well, then where's Shadow?"

A second later, another form hit Tails' virus from behind, sending him hurtling towards Rouge. The crash that followed nearly caused them both to fall out of the sky, but that answered Rouge's question in a hurry. Before Tails' clone could grab her, she managed to push off and put some distance between the two of them.

Just when it looked like things couldn't get any more insane, Sonic's virus retreated outside the room, with the real Sonic hot on his heels. Shadow tried to intercept, but he missed by about a full second, enough for both Sonic's clone and Sonic himself to whip past.

That scene turned heads. And Tails' doppelganger knew an opening when he saw one.

In the split second everyone's eyes were on the new arrivals, he flew up to ensure that he was out of range from attacks by anyone except possibly Rouge, and charged up his lasers. Not wanting to squander his chance, he didn't waste time on the more agile targets- those being Sonic, Metal Sonic, Shadow, and Rouge. Instead, he went for the easy meat, who was both large and relatively close.

That would be Knuckles.

Sticks saw it coming about a split second before it happened. "Knuckles! Watch out!"

Ultimately, it did nothing but startle him. But being startled probably saved his life.

For as soon as he took a half-step towards Sticks and said, "What?" Tails' virus fired. Knuckles yelped and jumped backwards, but he just wasn't fast enough. The laser hit his left arm at the bicep, and to everyone's horror (and the viruses' delight), cut cleanly through it, sending it falling to the ground, limp and useless, before it somehow disappeared from sight.

Because they weren't in their physical bodies, they were spared from the sight of blood spurting everywhere from the stump. But there _was_ plenty of pain involved, which Knuckles found out as soon as he hit the ground. He started screeching like a banshee, clutching the stump before realizing that made the pain even worse, and finally just curling up in a ball.

Both viruses had nasty grins light up their faces. With the lasers now able to cut instead of merely burn, people taking hits for others was simply not possible. And with the lack of outside help, there were no second chances anymore, You got hit, you were dead (or at least disfigured), and that's all there was to it.

"Hey! Eggman! You've done squat this whole time, can you make sure Knuckles doesn't die?" Sticks had to shout as loud as possible to be heard over the brawl, and even then, Eggman still had to strain to hear it. "Everyone else, keep doing what you're doing! Let's send these monsters back to meet their ancestors!"

That statement made no sense, but that didn't stop Eggman from complying (anything that kept him away from the battlefield was a positive when he couldn't fight) and the other five from attempting to rally. Even in a five-on-two matchup, with each of the five being pretty respectable fighters in their own right, it was going to take a lot more than just time to win out.

Shadow rushed in, crashing into Tails' doppelganger and knocking him back. This created an opening for Sticks to perform some freaky gymnastics, culminating with a move that caused her to springboard off his head, almost sending the two viruses crashing into each other. Rouge ran in while Tails' copy was still stunned, landing several solid hits in his gut and stomach before he flew out of range.

He somehow remained unscathed from those blows. Frankly, it seemed like none of their attacks were doing anything to drain them- no matter how many times they were knocked down, they'd just pop back up like nothing happened. And the five of them were starting to lose the ability to do the same.

Then came the counterattack. First, both viruses powered on their lasers at the same time, moving their hands in seemingly random patterns around the room. Tails, Eggman, and Knuckles, who were various degrees of immobile (two from injuries, one from fear), couldn't do much to dodge, but as for the others, they were back to playing the most important game of laser tag of their lives. As they darted around, desperately avoiding the killer beams, Tails' virus slowly flew closer and closer to a terrified Eggman. Rouge had an idea of what was coming next and tried to fly in close and stop him. Unfortunately for her, she was just a hair too slow. Tails' clone aimed the searing lasers in her direction, and while she avoided the brunt of them, it still managed to clip her wing. In seconds, a large chunk of the thing had been ripped free from the rest, and it floated towards the ground, fluttering on a nonexistent breeze, before vanishing altogether.

With her wings no longer matching, Rouge suddenly lost control of her flight path, zigzagging on an erratic course for a few unsteady seconds before slamming head-first into the ground and skidding to a painful stop. Sonic's clone sensed an opportunity and Spin Dashed towards her, but less than five feet away, he was suddenly blocked by what felt like a wall.

"You're not taking Rouge, you freak," Shadow hissed through clenched teeth, the Spin Dash he'd dropped into causing every muscle he had to scream in agony. Sonic tried to help, but Tails' virus dive-bombed him and succeeded this time. Sonic's hands went to his head as he toppled, looking like he was down for the count.

As Shadow and Sonic's clone battled for the upper hand, Tails' clone attacked the last two fighters left in commission, those being Sticks and Metal Sonic. With more lasers, they split, each trying to flank him. However, neither reached their target. One of their foe's hands forced Sticks to drop to the floor and roll for all she was worth, and the other managed to score a hit on Metal Sonic's right leg. Strangely, though, the leg didn't come off- it was smoking a little and hanging by nothing more than a twisted hunk of metal and some wires, but, by the dictionary definition, it was still an intact limb.

Intact or not, however, it didn't matter- it still sparked something fierce, sending bolts of blue-white electricity dancing across Metal Sonic's surface, and it had been mangled so badly that running on it was no longer an option.

Sticks got up and charged him again. He laughed, merely flying out of range. Sticks reached for the boomerangs she wore at all times before remembering that in this realm, they didn't exist. And one well-aimed laser later, he'd forced Sticks to leap backward to dodge it. The move she attempted probably would have looked very acrobatic if she'd pulled it off, but her weariness had slowed her reflexes considerably. Instead of landing in a perfect running position, as she'd intended, all she did was crash in a heap, looking thoroughly, utterly beaten.

Rouge had managed to crawl out of the warpath of Shadow and Sonic's virus, but Shadow was clearly losing ground. And when Tails' virus focused his lasers on him, he could only keep up the Spin Dash for a split second longer before he was sent flying backward, nearly crashing into a prone Tails.

Shadow struggled to get to his feet again, but it looked like the fight was over either way. Tails was in too much pain to fly, Knuckles in too much pain to move. Sonic was unconscious, Sticks could barely stand and wasn't the best at hand-to-hand combat anyway, Rouge had been grounded, Metal Sonic had been reduced to hopping around like a pirate missing his peg leg, strange flares of light bursting from his back, and Eggman was too terrified to even take a step forward.

"You take the controls again," Tails' clone told his partner. "We got this far, I think it's safe to say we won."

"Like it was even hard," Sonic's clone replied before disappearing into the control room again.

"Now," Tails' virus said as he advanced on the others, "Which of you should I torture first?"

Shadow managed to stand, but a wave of pain forced him to his knees again. He clawed at the air like he was trying not to drown in his own misery, but it didn't make him any more capable of fighting these monsters.

Before Shadow could prepare, the Tails doppelganger had picked his first target: the cowering, pathetic form of Doctor Eggman. As his lasers charged, he smirked, saying, "Why don't I start by frying up some eggs?"

What came next happened so fast that no one could have predicted it.

One second, Eggman was cringing, eyes closed, as he prepared for his death and Tails' virus cackled like a madman.

The next, his lasers fired.

But something got between them.

A blue, metallic something.

The others could only watch, mouths agape, as Metal Sonic used the emergency thrusters he'd been powering up while he'd been hopping around to intercept the laser, taking the punishment meant for Eggman. It only took a second for the laser to split his body cleanly in half, with his bottom half clattering to the ground, nothing more than scrap metal.

But the top half kept going. And it took Tails' virus by complete surprise. He barely took flight fast enough to avoid a crash landing, and the impact was jarring enough to shut off the lasers. And even after it hit the ground, the parts of him that Metal Sonic could still control were sparking with electricity from all his severed wires, causing him to be wreathed in a brilliant blue glow.

"Bad… idea," Metal Sonic sputtered, every system he had struggling not to fail. Before anyone could say anything more, what appeared to be a bolt of lightning erupted from Metal Sonic, striking Tails' clone directly in the head and sending him crashing to the ground. But it didn't stop, all of Metal Sonic's energy flowing through it as Tails' virus screeched and writhed, trying desperately to escape-

Before, in an instant, he disintegrated.

It wasn't a slow or graceful process, either- it was quick and without fanfare. One second, the thing was there, shrieking in pain. The next, it had exploded into nothing more than the red mist it spawned from, and in seconds, the others couldn't even recognize that anymore.

Unfortunately, Metal Sonic seemed like he was about to go the same way. While no one except Eggman and maybe Tails could understand exactly how he worked, it was pretty common knowledge that most electronics sliced in half didn't just keep working like nothing had happened.

He attempted to lift his head, but failed. However, he managed to choke out two more words. "It's… done-"

Then, he followed in the footsteps of Tails' virus and exploded into mist. But unlike the red stuff they'd seen before, Metal Sonic's was pure white. That didn't change the time it took to disappear by much, though- in less than fifteen seconds, there were no signs that Metal Sonic had ever existed.

Eggman, already a picture of a broken man, began to weep over the sacrifice of his most prized creation. As for the other six, while they were in too much pain to mourn him properly, acknowledged the sacrifice Metal Sonic had made, knowing that without it, they'd likely all be dead. Even if he hadn't always been on the right side of morality, he'd done the noble thing when it counted most.

And sometimes, one moment is all someone needs to be redeemed.

Suddenly, Shadow's head jolted up, and he remembered they weren't out of the woods yet. "Sonic's clone is still in the control room! We need to stop him!"

The six of them that remained ran- or hobbled and crawled, in most cases- into the control room, only to find it empty. Sonic's virus had disappeared without a trace.

Naturally, Knuckles managed to choke out the obvious question, even between surges of pain. "Where did he go?"

Suddenly, Eggman was hit with an awful theory. He knew the creature craved power, and he knew that Metal Sonic (if he was even present in the real world) was now ripe for the taking. It only took a few seconds for him to fit the pieces together.

"Oh, no…"


	25. How to Make a Monster

Amy was the only person who had remained behind to watch the others.

Even when the twitches and random firing of lasers had stopped, she still eyed Sonic like she was worried he would steal her purse. As for the others, although they did nothing except blink and breathe, she still hoped that whatever they were doing, they were succeeding.

Without warning, a thick stream of red, cloud-like material erupted from Sonic, utterly derailing her train of thought. While her bad leg made it much more difficult to fight than usual, she'd still brought her hammer to the scene, just in case she might need it. Thus, she wound up for a swing, even though she wasn't sure how a hammer could hurt something that was essentially liquid.

Said liquid didn't appear to bother with her. Instead, after it all appeared to have fled Sonic's body, it seemed to pause for a second before beginning to flow inside the still form of Metal Sonic. Amy took several staggering steps back, having unpleasant memories of Metal Sonic from the few times they'd encountered each other.

But as the last of the red mist trickled into Metal Sonic, regular Sonic suddenly jumped to his feet, shouting, "Amy!"

Amy didn't waste a second. "Sonic?"

"This isn't actually Sonic, but that doesn't matter," Sonic said. "Here's the deal: remember the mind analysis device that we talked about last night?"

"Yes," Amy said, nodding her head frantically. "You're holding it right now."

"Well, that makes things easier," Sonic said. Right after saying that, he figured out which hand he was holding it in, then moved the corresponding arm so that the beam was facing his head.

"Wait," Amy said. "What are you doing?"

"Just watch," Sonic said. While the end that fired a beam was still pointed at his head, he began to press a red button on the device over and over again, counting aloud as he did. "One, two, three…"

He stopped at fourteen presses, even as nothing seemed to happen with the group of bodies who used to be inhabited by her friends. That stayed true for a few more seconds, but then, Sonic began giving off more wisps of multicolored mist, which crescendoed into a full-on explosion of the stuff from his body as it changed from a rainbow mass into six individual streams.

Those same streams began to enter her friends in an order that seemed completely random to Amy- Shadow began the process first, while Tails came last. Before any of their processes could finish, however, Metal Sonic started blinking or at least doing the closest thing that a robot could manage. His eyes glowed red, as usual, but it just seemed more… ominous this time around.

His actions matched his looks not long after he came to. While he ignored Amy, he took the free time before the others recovered and slammed into all of them with a Spin Dash, sending them flying backward a solid twenty feet. The only exception was Sticks, who flew almost twice as far before crashing into a half-destroyed cottage, luckily not face-first.

Shadow suddenly sprang to his feet, his process having finished first. Without a word of explanation, he charged at Metal Sonic, and Metal Sonic did the same. They slammed into each other with a noise akin to an explosion, neither one willing to give an inch.

Rouge came next. Once she came to her senses and witnessed the scene, she shouted, "Amy! Metal Sonic's been possessed, he's the real threat now!"

"Wait," Amy said, "does that mean that Sonic-"

"Sonic's fine now," Rouge replied. "Well, 'fine' isn't exactly the right word for it, since he's been held captive by an evil entity for the past two days, but he's no longer evil. Once everyone else gets out of his head, he can help us take down this thing for good!"

"Well, that's good news," Amy yelled, but it was lost in the fighting. Shadow and Metal Sonic had stopped Spin Dashing into each other, having done it so hard and for so long they'd left a noticeable imprint in the ground. Without taking even a second to recover, Metal Sonic dashed away from the village, quickly fading to nothing more than a speck.

The others had come to their senses by now, and to no one's surprise, Knuckles had no idea what the hell was going on. "Wait, where'd Metal Sonic go?"

"Not sure," Rouge said, "but it can't mean anything good."

"Of course it's not good," Eggman shouted. "Remember the thrusters he used before? I'm not sure they'll last him to the mainland, but I don't think any of us want to find out the answer when he gets there!"

"Well, we can't just stand here! We have to catch him," Shadow said. "I'll take Rouge, Sonic, you take Tails. Everyone else, I think you can fit into Eggman's flying machine!"

"Got it," said Rouge, sprinting over to Shadow.

"On it," yelled Sonic, having already picked up Tails.

"I'll get to it in a second," Eggman added, darting toward his flying machine.

Sonic and Shadow were off in a hurry, taking Tails and Rouge with them. Sonic tried to keep his speed manageable for Tails' sake, but Shadow showed no such regard, leaving Sonic and the others in the dust in seconds. Luckily for him, Metal Sonic had moved in a relatively straight line, and there was enough foliage on the ground that his path had been made quite clear.

It didn't take long for the stuff to thin out, but by then, Shadow could see Metal Sonic. Fortunately, there were no signs of him learning how to re-activate his thrusters. But they recognized their location instantly. Toppled trees. Decimated plants. A cluster of ruined mud-and-straw huts not far away.

And the corpses of several Gogobas less than ten feet away from where Metal Sonic was standing.

He hadn't moved or even acknowledged that Shadow had arrived, instead remaining still, as a faint reddish glow began to surround him. Shadow dropped Rouge and slammed into him, but he might as well have hit a stone wall for all the reaction he got. Sonic did likewise, but it resulted in a similar lack of effect.

Yet still, Metal Sonic did nothing but stand there. The others, even Tails, had no clue as to what was going on.

But once the first computer part came flying out of seemingly nowhere, things started to become clearer. Rouge narrowly avoided getting a keyboard to the face, while Tails had to duck a flying monitor with its exposed electrical cords still sparking. It seemed like a fluke until several dozen more airborne computer parts came from what appeared to be everywhere and nowhere all at once. Sonic and Shadow did their best to dodge them, but even with their efforts, Shadow still took a nasty whack to the head with a mouse, while Sonic almost got his legs knocked out from under him by a thick cable.

Tails, still on the ground, turned to face Metal Sonic. "What the-"

That was all he got out before a full computer- not a detached part like the others before it- slammed into Tails' head. He yelped in agony and tried to move further away, but every movement looked painful for him.

"I got you, Tails!" Sonic rushed over to grab Tails, then moved him so that Shadow and he stood between them. Metal Sonic still wasn't moving, but the deconstructed computers had stopped just floating aimlessly, instead beginning to gather in clusters. And those clusters were moving closer and closer to Metal Sonic by the second.

"I don't think we want to find out what he's doing with those," Rouge said.

Unfortunately, it looked like they were about to. Sonic and Shadow kept smashing into Metal Sonic again and again, but nothing they did had any impact whatsoever- he didn't even take a step back. Even worse, the clusters of electronics had begun to get in the way- no matter what side the two of them approached from, they found themselves blocked by a wall of wires and metal.

Sonic turned to Tails for an explanation of how Metal Sonic could possibly be doing this, but failed to see him. "Probably tried to move to somewhere safer," he mused, and he couldn't blame him, either.

The hissing of a straining engine becoming audible in the distance hinted that reinforcements were coming, but it appeared they were going to be far too late. The parts weren't just floating around anymore- now they were starting to attach to Metal Sonic's frame- tightly at first, but soon beginning to expand outward, linking everything together in a chain of electronics.

Shadow gasped, trying to hide his pounding chest the best he could- he didn't tolerate any weaknesses in others and he damn well didn't want to show any himself. "How the hell are we supposed to deal with _that?_ "

"Keep hitting it," Sonic hissed, before returning to the barrage. The two of them aimed for anything exposed, anything with fragile connections, anything that looked like it could break. But even as they made contact and beat themselves against the monstrous machine again and again and again, nothing happened. No pieces fell off. Nothing broke. Metal Sonic didn't even speak, like their efforts were so insignificant that they didn't even warrant his attention.

Suddenly, a loud thud turned everyone's attention, even Metal Sonic's, towards Eggman's flying machine. Eggman himself was gaping so widely that his jaw hung open like he was some kind of zombie (and he'd had so much of his wits scared out of him that he'd let go of the controls), Knuckles had an expression on his face that screamed "Does not compute," and Sticks looked like she was about to pass out from pure fear.

"Metal Sonic?" Eggman's voice was quivering even more than usual here. "What, what…"

"I'm making some self-improvements," he replied. It was the first time he'd talked since being possessed, and the only thing it made clear was that this was _not_ Metal Sonic in any way, shape, or form. Metal Sonic's speech (on the rare occasions that he chose to talk to begin with) was always formal, calm, and emotionless. This thing was making no attempt at formality, and his voice was so overtly malicious it was a wonder he didn't scream his words at top volume, just to hurt the ears of anyone listening. "Now that I have control of a robot, with that little program of yours that uses one computer to control others-" Tails blanched upon hearing that- "I can summon even more computers to this host and make him unstoppable."

Sticks screamed, "We're gonna need a lot of water to make this thing stop working!"

"No need," it chuckled. "Once I get to the mainland, that won't be a concern anymore."

"Don't just stand there, attack!" Even though Shadow had been ramming into this creature for the past five minutes, his ego had been bruised far worse than his body. Sonic joined in an instant. Sticks knocked Eggman out of the way and started firing at the creature from her perch, missing with every shot but not giving up.

"Nice try," it laughed. "It's far too late for that. But you'll figure that out soon, once the world falls to me."

Then, and only then, the thrusters on Metal Sonic's back- or at least, the abominations that used to be the thrusters- started firing up. Sonic didn't stop hitting it. Neither did Shadow. Sticks ran up to it and began attacking it with all the force the crazy badger could muster. Knuckles ran at it as well, his left arm hanging limp at his side for some reason. Even Rouge tried to take off and strike at its head, but somehow her flight path turned into a corkscrew that caused her to slam into the ground face-first again.

A wave of hot, dusty air exploded from Metal Sonic, knocking everyone back as he began to lift off, slowly at first but gaining speed by the instant. They kept attacking it with everything they had, but in seconds, Sonic and Shadow could no longer reach it, and Sticks was forced to abandon ship to make sure her legs didn't shatter when she fell off.

The thing, sarcasm dripping from every word, called out, "Well, you guys lost. I'd say, 'better luck next time,' but there won't _be_ a next time, now, will there?" Then, it oriented itself horizontally and began its journey to the mainland, soon fading to nothing more than a speck on the horizon.

Once the others couldn't reach it, Shadow ran off. He yelled over his shoulder, "Got to call our employers, maybe they have something that can stop this monster before it does too much damage…" Then, he was gone.

Everyone else bowed their heads. The absolute worst had come to pass: the virus had gotten off the island.

They had failed.

It wasn't their first failure ever, but it would probably be their last.

Rouge collapsed in misery. Eggman outright started crying again. Sonic just stared out into the distance, like that would somehow get Metal Sonic back where they were.

Eggman, ever the pessimist, said the three words that they all were thinking at that precise moment. "Well, we're screwed."

"You can say that again," Knuckles said. "And my arm isn't working for some reason." He was speaking the truth- his right arm was in a fighting stance, but the left one still hung at his side.

"Maybe," Eggman said, so quietly the others had to strain to hear him, "the damage you took inside Sonic's brain, where you lost your arm, translated into a part of your body your brain either can't control anymore or doesn't know about." He looked around for a second. "Tails, doesn't that make sense?"

"Tails isn't here, guys," Sonic said. "He went to find a safer spot, he's been incapacitated the whole time."

Eggman gave him a strange look. "You sure about that? I don't think we passed him on our way here, none of us saw him."

Sonic wasn't convinced. "What do you mean, you didn't see him? Where else could he have…"

Then, he made the connection. "No. No no no no no no no no no…"

Rouge didn't take much longer to figure it out. "Wait. I think you're suggesting…"

Eggman finished her sentence. "...that Tails left with the virus somehow."

Sonic kept up his babbling, having lost anything resembling common sense at the thought his best friend might have just gotten himself killed. "No no no no no no no…"

At that moment, everyone appeared to share one thought, horrible but true.

_Tails, what the hell were you thinking?_


	26. Between the Sky and Sea

In any other circumstance, this place would be Tails' equivalent of heaven.

Inside the mechanics of an impeccable creation, surrounded by the familiar hum of electricity and glow of computer monitors, and nestled just tightly enough inside it for everything to be close at hand but loosely enough to not be constricting his movement, everything was perfect here. Except for one key thing: he had maybe a few minutes before this thing started to bring about the end of the world as he knew it, and it looked like he was the only one who even had a chance to stop it.

He'd believed that ever since the attacks of Sonic and Shadow had barely even scratched the creature, but he needed to get close for it to happen, and while the fight had been raging, there was no way for him to do that without getting one of his body parts chopped off. But once it had started assembling its Frankenstein body, he'd hatched an insane, last-ditch plan to try and get where he needed: he simply moved behind the thing so it couldn't see him, and just stood there, letting the computer parts surround him until he was completely buried in electronics. Fortunately, the creature hadn't appeared to notice.

Tails didn't want to risk moving around too much, for he didn't know if Metal Sonic would be able to tell he was there or if he'd trigger some sensor, leaving his plans foiled and likely ending his life. However, he was practically surrounded by the computers this thing was running on, and he'd always thought of himself as a pretty good programmer. What else was he supposed to do?

"You made this monster, Tails," he thought to himself. "Now, it's time for you to destroy it."

Every screen nearby was swarming with a sea of green and red letters, numbers, symbols, and shapes, a corrupted replica of his most powerful coding achievement. However, it was still not much more than a clone of the project, meaning Tails could figure out exactly how to destroy it for good.

At least, that's what he hoped.

Taking care to move as little as possible, he moved his arm to reach a nearby keyboard, and the second he eased his pounding heart into a steady rhythm, he began typing as fast as he could.

* * *

Rouge would have asked Sonic if they had anything that could track Tails, but since he was still in the midst of a nervous breakdown, she'd had to turn to Eggman, of all people.

"Eggman," she said, "do you have any devices that can track Metal Sonic's location?"

"The communicator we've been using should suffice," he said. "I think it has something on it that tracks where he is, or I should at least be able to reprogram it to do that."

"Good, but then do it now," Rouge said. "Shadow's probably talking with our employers as we speak, so having solid evidence as to where they need to be directed is going to be helpful."

Eggman looked at the device, then started fiddling with it after a couple of seconds, attempting to access its code and find Metal Sonic's location. But to the surprise of everybody, when the device turned on, it appeared to be broadcasting a deafening noise that sounded like several large engines running at once.

"Sounds like he's still flying, that's a good sign," Rouge said. "It means we have time before the worst of it starts."

Then, a rough, cutting voice became clear over all the noise. "Nice try, Tails. It's cute how you think you can stop me now."

"Wait," Knuckles said. "Did he say Tails' name?"

At the mere mention of him, Sonic snapped out of his stupor. "Tails is trying to stop him?"

Eggman nodded. "Sure sounds like it."

"Keep the communicator on," Rouge said. "Also, we need to head for the mainland, because we should back up whatever tries to fight this thing when it gets to its destination. Plus, if Metal Sonic doesn't kill Tails, we're probably going to have to rescue him."

Sonic had already thrown himself in Eggman's flying machine. "What the hell are we waiting for? I'll pilot this thing myself if I have to. Let's go!"

Eggman had already been ready, having arrived in the machine and never left it, but Rouge barely managed to get into the thing before Sonic gripped the controls and started it up. Within seconds, he'd figured out how to get the thing to launch, causing the three of them to lurch upward in a less-than-graceful manner. Then, he pushed forward on the controls, causing them to fly forward so fast Eggman nearly toppled into the ocean.

"Give me that," he hissed, before taking the controls from Sonic and slowing them down to a fast but reasonable speed. Once their motion was steadier, Eggman started talking again.

"I've gotten to where we need to track Metal Sonic," Eggman said. "We just need to wait for it to calibrate, then we'll know his coordinates."

"Either way, we have to hurry," Rouge said. "Just keep going this way, the mainland's not far from here."

The three of them said nothing more, instead staring at the communicator, hoping for it to calibrate before all was lost.

Suddenly, Eggman said, "It's done! He's not too far from here, maybe five miles or so, and with this thing, that's nothing! Hopefully, we'll be able to catch him before he touches down."

Before anyone could say anything more, a piercing scream erupted from the communicator. And it didn't sound like it came from Metal Sonic.

Sonic, desperate to save his friend, yelled, "Where's Metal Sonic now?"

Eggman pointed almost straight ahead with his free hand. "We're going in the right direction, why do you need to- agh!"

He said that last part because while he was distracted, Sonic had grabbed the controls again and had caused the machine to reach top speed, jetting off towards Metal Sonic and probably Tails. If and when they ever caught up, they'd just have to see if there was anything they could do to try and stop the virus.

But for now, all they could do was hope.

* * *

Tails had been spotted. And he wasn't done yet.

He'd pushed himself back as deep into the machine as possible, but he knew he was on borrowed time. All he could do was code and hope.

"Don't think you can hide from me, Tails," Metal Sonic said. "I know you're in there. Come out and face your death with dignity."

But Tails didn't care about dignity, and didn't want to die, either. Thus, he showed no response, instead continuing to type. He only needed a little longer- he'd almost overwhelmed the program's firewalls, he was so close…

Then a crash behind him caused him to turn his head to look in spite of himself. The little nook Tails had gotten into, which had previously been enclosed, was now open to the outside, revealing the ocean below and the gloomy gray sky above. That view didn't last long though, soon being replaced with that of a horrific claw-like apparatus. The thing's four fingers were all about a foot long and made of mismatched pieces of metal and wires, with ends that all were wickedly sharp. It looked like it could slice Tails to pieces without really trying, and Tails knew that the creature possessing Metal Sonic was going to try.

"If you're not coming out, I'm coming in," Metal Sonic hissed, sliding his claw inside the hole he'd just made. Tails returned to coding, hoping he could finish before he got dragged into the open, but the sound of misshapen metal screeching across more misshapen metal filled his ears, straining his focus and causing his heart to race.

"Come on," he said to himself. "Just a little more time…"

Unfortunately for him, he wouldn't get any time, let alone 'a little more.' He felt something cold and sharp grab his tails and yank backward, causing him to screech before slamming into another cold metal object. He was still inside Metal Sonic, but that seemed like it would change at any second.

"Got you," Metal Sonic growled. "No one to save you now, is there, Tails?"

Tails still didn't respond. He tried with everything he had to work his namesakes free, but was making zero progress. Metal Sonic's grip on them was extremely strong and relied on a lot of pressure, so the only way Tails could have gotten them free was by ripping the trapped parts clear off his body, which would probably kill him anyway, given time.

But that seemed like an excellent idea compared to just sitting there and letting himself get murdered, an outcome that was approaching fast. No matter how much he struggled and writhed and jerked himself in the other direction, he still was pulled closer and closer to the outside world by the second.

"I'd stop fighting if I were you," Metal Sonic said in a singsong voice. "It'd make everything a whole lot easier!"

Tails disagreed, but he didn't have the energy or the time to protest. Almost without trying, Metal Sonic dragged Tails backward one final time, dangling him upside down in front of his face, now a huge, misshapen hunk of discolored metal with jagged slashes like scars cutting deep into the material, with a bulbous, malformed nose and a mouth with teeth made of gnashing gears adorning it. His eyes, now deep red and the size of dinner plates, trained on Tails as he spoke.

"So, this is where it ends," Metal Sonic said. "I'm almost sad it was this easy." He paused for a second, chuckling like he found murder hilarious (which, at this point, he probably did). Tails hoped that Metal Sonic would make a mistake like he usually did- loosen his grip by accident, maybe fly into something, anything allowing him to break free and stall for time until someone else could kill him. But that didn't seem likely.

This thing had already made one mistake in torturing him in front of Sonic. He wasn't keen on making another one.

Metal Sonic moved his claw further up Tails' body and began to close, crushing him in its grasp. "Game… over!"

Tails tried to squirm out, kick at his assailant, make any progress. But he failed on all accounts. The pressure was only increasing, and it wouldn't be long before things started breaking.

Several seconds later, something did break.

But that something didn't belong to Tails.

Having to deal with Tails before he reached the mainland was Metal Sonic's critical weakness. He'd slowed to a crawl while he focused on trying to extricate him, allowing Sonic and the others to catch up. Eggman didn't have a lot of heavy-duty weapons with him, but even the standard ones would be pretty horrific if the victim was a robot. Which it was.

As soon as he was in range, he'd fired three shots- a full round of the basic weapon, he'd need to reload before firing again- in quick succession. The first missed by about a foot to the right, while the second just nicked Metal Sonic in the side.

The third, however, struck Metal Sonic in the arm. The same arm he was using to hold Tails. The thing came out of its position with a loud pop, dropping fifteen feet before stopping, being held on by nothing but wires, which then started sparking. Before anyone could get a hold of what was going on, the now-dangling hand, Tails clearly visible inside its grip, detached from the rest of the creature, falling towards the endless sea beneath them.

Sonic swerved hard both down and to the right, nearly sending Eggman tumbling for a second time. "Tails!"

The only thing keeping it from being a very painful (if not outright deadly) splashdown was that the grip of the hand no longer trapped Tails' namesakes. While exhausted and in severe pain, he still spun the things as fast as he could out of basic, animal-level instincts. It didn't do much, and even rendered Sonic's attempt to catch him useless- if he'd done nothing, the flying machine would have _just_ gotten there in time, but as it was, it passed underneath him while Tails was still six feet too high, and Sonic couldn't brake hard enough to correct for his mistake.

The distance of the fall was what saved him. If he'd had less time to stop himself, he would have been dead in the water, both figuratively and literally. As it was, he managed to stop his fall with less than ten feet to spare. His luck ended there, though- no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get himself to ascend, and with an enemy like this that was a death sentence as well.

Before Metal Sonic could get there, though, Sonic beat him to the punch. As he flew the machine past, Rouge managed to reach out and grab him, nearly ripping one of his tails loose from the sudden acceleration but getting Tails out of harm's way nonetheless.

Naturally, the first thing Rouge did was ask the question on everyone's mind. "Tails, what the hell were you thinking?"

"Wanted… to delete the program," Tails choked out. "I got caught before I could finish- I still needed to type about a dozen lines, and my work's going to get reset as soon as Metal Sonic starts off again."

Metal Sonic, however, wasn't content to just finish his flight to the mainland and leave it at that. Tails being released from his clutches the first time had angered him. Having it happen for the second time was nothing short of infuriating. "You've gotten in my way for the last time," he hissed. "Prepare to die."

"The funny thing is, we're not dead yet," Eggman yelled at his former creation.

He probably shouldn't have said that. While the four of them should have expected this, since every host the virus had taken had gotten that ability, when lasers erupted from Metal Sonic's enormous hands, it still sent everyone into a mild panic. Sonic kept control of the machine, dodging and weaving like crazy to avoid getting cooked, but by the time Metal Sonic had to take a break, their nerves were frazzled, their heads were spinning, and they felt sick.

"Don't worry about that much longer. If I have my way, you'll be dead soon enough," Metal Sonic screeched, charging up his lasers for another blast as he did.

Despite every brain cell they had screaming that they were going to die, despite their aching heads, despite their dizziness and nausea and primal, animalistic fear, the others didn't flee. They knew they were the only reason Metal Sonic hadn't started massacring thousands of innocent civilians and were willing to give anything, including their lives, to keep that from happening.

So, as Metal Sonic prepared for another attack, the others charged toward him for a final deathmatch that would change the fate of the world.


	27. Deconstruction

Everyone knew that this rivalry ended now.

The winner wasn't going to walk away with much, but the loser would either be dead or incapacitated by the time this was over. Metal Sonic knew that if he didn't destroy the others now, there was no way he'd ever take over the rest of the world, whereas the others knew if Metal Sonic powered up anymore, the damage he'd cause would reach catastrophic levels.

As it was, he was still pretty powerful. Even without any extra energy, his lasers carved a singed line into Eggman's flying machine, and it would have been a lot worse had he not swerved to the side at the last moment.

Metal Sonic swore loudly before charging the machine. Eggman pulled up, causing him to miss but also putting his back to the enemy, which was never a good thing regardless of circumstances. While Metal Sonic was far less maneuverable than he'd been before, that didn't stop him from blindly charging backward to try and ram the machine out of the air. He'd angled too low for that, causing him to fail once more, but now he was right below the others, and before Eggman could react, he fired another laser straight up.

The metal bottom was durable enough that it didn't get penetrated, but the energy was enough to blast it upwards. Everyone except Eggman (who'd been tightly gripping the controls) was thrown to the floor, and Eggman wasn't immune either- he got a face full of buttons, causing a loud horn to beep and something else to be fired. Furthermore, because of the way his arm moved when he'd been hit with the jolt, they swerved sharply to the right and then plummeted for a few perilous seconds, nearly sending everyone spilling before Eggman came to his senses and stabilized their flight.

By then, Metal Sonic had gotten behind them again, preparing for another charge. Sonic whirled around in time to see it coming, grabbing the controls away from Eggman and jerking up again. It didn't do much, but instead of being sent spinning out from a devastating hit, they were merely clipped by one of his arms, pitching the thing forward but not doing that much else.

Eggman tried to regain control, but Sonic was having none of it. Using reflexes he didn't know he had (although spending a little too much of his spare time playing video games was probably a factor) he zipped behind Metal Sonic before pressing the first button that looked like it triggered a weapon.

It wasn't a weapon- it turned out to be a booster, sending them rocketing forward and slamming into Metal Sonic. The impact was so great, it knocked him several feet away and caused something in their machine to screech for a second before short-circuiting.

Taking back the controls, Eggman swore under his breath. "You idiot! What if that was something important?"

Sonic had no time to answer, because Metal Sonic was firing lasers again, meaning they either had to dodge or get sliced to pieces, neither of which involved talking.

Metal Sonic was getting impressively angry by now- you could see more and more steam erupt from his head with each missed attack. After releasing a spout comparable to a geyser when Eggman kept the others out of the path of his lasers for the umpteenth time, something clearly went off in his head. Spewing curses at no one in particular, he charged the machine once more.

Eggman tried to drop below his path, but this time Metal Sonic saw that coming, letting several of his newly-formed arms drop to grab the machine. A loud screech of tearing metal indicated his success, and as the others struggled not to scream or panic, he lifted the thing to eye level.

"This ends now," Metal Sonic said, charging up a fatal blow.

Eggman, however, wasn't ready to die yet. Without even thinking, he pressed a button that would release the most powerful weapon he had, an explosive rocket designed to home in on its target.

The side of the machine split open, causing the rocket to do just what it was supposed to. After lodging itself in Metal Sonic's chest, right next to one of the arms holding them captive, it detonated, splitting the arm from his body and almost blowing a hole clear through him. At the same time, Eggman violently jerked the controls backward, and that, along with the ripple effect the explosion created, managed to jerk them out of Metal Sonic's grip.

Sonic, despite how focused he was, managed to sputter something out. "Thanks, Eggman."

Eggman, however, wasn't really in a position to be smug over that. Just because they were free didn't mean they were out of the woods or could even see the light at the end of the tunnel yet. Metal Sonic didn't let them forget it- he charged yet again at them, forcing Eggman to plunge under his attack this time.

Metal Sonic grabbed for them and missed. Eggman fired his basic weapon as fast as he could, managing to hit Metal Sonic with most of his shots, but only one of them (which jarred another one of his arms loose) had a lot of impact- the rest created noticeable dents and sent sparks shooting, but otherwise did nothing except make him angrier and more aggressive.

Soon, Eggman had to stop as he spun the controls back around. Rouge, however, was having none of it. "What the hell are you doing? Keep shooting!"

"I need to reload," Eggman said, "and I don't have infinite ammo. We have to make every shot count!"

While Eggman was working on reloading his weapon, Sonic took over the controls again, jerking them sharply to the left as Metal Sonic began firing lasers again. The movement threw Eggman off balance and almost made him fall into the ocean, but he flung himself backward to land on the floor of the machine. Seeing lasers cutting through the air above him and feeling Sonic performing every trick he knew to keep them from being cooked, the stress was quickly catching up to him- all of his muscles were tense, his eyes dilated, his fingers clenched.

Sonic, meanwhile, kept them out of harm's way with everything he had. However, he was clueless as to which of the many buttons fired weapons that would hinder Metal Sonic.

"Uhh, Eggman? Hate to ask this now, but unless you're taking back the controls, I kind of need a crash course on how to work this thing!"

Eggman was on his feet in an instant, saying, "I'll handle the weapons here," before grabbing the controls and jolting them to get behind Metal Sonic. However, Metal Sonic was prepared for that, and whirled around before making a move to try and grab them again. Eggman's reflexes, once more, were just a hair too slow, and history began repeating itself.

Rouge's heart rate just about went through the roof. "Eggman! Why aren't you firing that homing rocket again?"

"I only had the one!" Eggman was trying to maintain a semblance of calmness, but if the sweat beading on his face and the way he fiddled with his mustache was any indication, he was failing miserably.

Metal Sonic was laughing now, preparing to fire at the four of them one last time while they were still sitting ducks and never have to worry about anything else getting in his way again. It would have worked, if not for one simple thing.

Rouge, being the most used to high-stakes scenarios, threw herself out of the cockpit, hoping to scout Metal Sonic for weak spots. However, the same misfortune affecting Knuckles' arm had happened to her wings, so instead, she turned an unsteady double helix before slamming into his chest. However, it did provide a distraction, which was all the others needed to get out of the machine as well. When Metal Sonic did turn on his lasers and fry the machine to a crisp, the machine was the only thing that had its life ended.

Metal Sonic's nigh-impenetrable bulk proved to be an advantage here; while regular attacks to anything that wasn't a loosely-attached limb did next to nothing, it wasn't smooth and had plenty of landing spots. Eggman took the obvious one only a few feet down, just below Metal Sonic's neck. Rouge dropped to another perch right below him, and Tails helped Sonic stick the landing on a big one that was pretty far down- right above the joint connecting Metal Sonic's left leg to his body- before landing there himself.

Metal Sonic spewed even more curses, shaking himself violently to try and dislodge his unwelcome passengers, which did nothing on its own- they just held on for everything they were worth and were pretty good at that, even Eggman. Then, he threw a punch at Eggman, his nearest target. Unfortunately for him, because his fists were so large, not only was that move telegraphed a full five seconds in advance, it worked kind of like a ballistic missile- capable of tremendous damage, but nearly impossible to course-correct once its motion had started. Eggman managed to creep a few feet away before the punch made contact, meaning that not only did it miss, he also caused quite a bit of damage to himself, evident by destroyed pieces of metal detaching from his form and sparks flying from the area he'd just hit.

Eggman breathed a sigh of relief. He might have been at death's door right now, but at least he probably wouldn't go out like _that_. That relief was short-lived, though.

"That's it," Metal Sonic said, "You're not even getting a special death anymore. Once I get to the mainland, all you'll be is a statistic."

With that, he began speeding for the mainland again, forcing the others to grab onto whatever they could for support. No one wanted to be tossed into the middle of the ocean.

Over the shrieking wind, Sonic still managed to pose the obvious question to the close-by Tails, even if he had to shout to be heard. "What do we do now?"

At first, it looked like he didn't have an answer. But it turned out he was just having difficulty communicating, since he wasn't talking and all four of his limbs (plus his namesakes) had been devoted to keeping him attached to Metal Sonic as he flew. But then he risked taking a hand off its handhold to gesture upward, barely keeping himself attached during the process.

Then, he took on the riskiest endeavor of his life (which was saying a lot) and began to climb Metal Sonic's body.

* * *

As for those who hadn't flown after Metal Sonic- Knuckles, Amy, Sticks, and Shadow- there was surprisingly little activity going on.

Shadow had rejoined the other three after completing his call, saying, "Our employers have mobilized an attack force, they should be ready to take this thing down within the hour." However, his statement felt surprisingly hollow, like even he thought it would be too little, too late.

Their only hope was their friends, and despite how much it killed them inside, there was no way for them to help.

All they could do was watch the horizon, wait, and hope.

* * *

Tails wasn't sure how he did it, but he'd pulled himself up to the hole Eggman's rocket had created.

Metal Sonic's flight, while very straight, caused him to shake so hard the sensation reminded Tails of a roller coaster. He dropped to his hands and knees to keep his balance, slowly edging his way in as he searched for another computer.

Suddenly, he felt something warm on his back. On instinct, he swung his hand behind him as hard as possible. Once he made contact, however, he heard an "Ow!"

Once he looked behind him, he realized he'd just slapped Sonic in the face. "Oh! Sorry, I thought you were-"

"No need for an apology," Sonic said. "I just came here to help, since you look like you have a plan."

"Good," Tails replied. "Every bit counts. If Metal Sonic tries to get me again, keep him away. I'm trying again, it'll only take a minute."

Maybe he shouldn't have said that. Whether Metal Sonic heard that or it was just through plain coincidence, the whooshing sound of the air from outside began to fade, and their motion slowed down. Metal Sonic knew what they were up to- it was just a question of whether they could hold him off or not.

At that moment, Tails spotted what he'd been looking for this entire time- an intact computer, still swarming with the lines of code from his former magnum opus. Without hesitation, he darted forward, scanning the computer to make sure that the program had been reverted. Meanwhile, Metal Sonic was trying to reach in and pull Tails out once more. However, Sonic was having none of it.

"Not today, you faker," Sonic said, Spin Dashing into one of the three appendages Metal Sonic had stuck inside and bending it the wrong way. It withdrew, but it only made the other two more aggressive. Sonic repeated the process with an angry growl, swiftly making them useless as well. Meanwhile, Tails desperately coded in the background, dripping with sweat and shaking from adrenaline.

"I'm not going down that easy," Metal Sonic screeched outside them, the effort causing a slight vibration to run through the floor. Then, he withdrew the remaining parts Sonic had destroyed, replacing it with a different, blocky-looking one made of rusty metal. Sonic Spin Dashed into it again, but Metal Sonic had clearly learned his lesson after the first go-around, and instead of just thinking he could take it, he thrust it forward with no warning. While it still got destroyed, it also sent Sonic tumbling backward, banging his head several times on the floor before crashing against the wall, not five feet away from Tails.

"Oh, crap," Tails said. "Not again, I can't let this happen again!"

He typed faster, fully aware that he was running out of time. Sonic stirred next to him, but from the glance Tails dared take, he was in no condition to fight. As metal screeched against metal once more, Tails' speed only intensified. He couldn't afford to lose focus, not now.

Not when he was this close.

* * *

While Tails and Sonic had been trying to destroy Metal Sonic from the inside, Rouge and Eggman were attempting to do the same for the outside.

Metal Sonic clearly didn't view them as much of a threat. Occasionally, he threw a punch at one of them, but they always had the same problems- too large a telegraph and too hard to course-correct.

Rouge attacked anything that looked weak from wherever she could reach. Her crippled wings didn't always take her where she wanted or needed to go, but she made the best of every position she landed in. Eggman, however, was in a far less effective position- he couldn't fly and wasn't the best at climbing either, so he'd simply slipped down to an oversized piece of metal jutting out of Metal Sonic's front and attempted to rip out whatever he could with his bare hands or destroy exposed wiring. Neither, however, proved to do that much.

They hadn't seen where Sonic and Tails had gone and had no idea what the hell they were going to do at this point. However, after Metal Sonic had ignored them for an extended stretch of time, they naturally tried to figure out what the cause was.

Rouge risked turning around and thus figured out the solution first. She saw Metal Sonic surround the hole the rocket had made earlier with half a dozen nasty-looking metal parts before beginning to force them into the hole.

"That can't be good," Rouge said to herself, before jumping off her previous perch and attempting to soar gracefully to the hole. What she got, however, was an unsteady corkscrew that ended with her awkwardly landing on one of Metal Sonic's appendages right next to her destination.

"Oh, you think you're so clever, trying to help them," Metal Sonic hissed, three more appendages joining the one she was riding as he did. "Too bad, better luck next time."

Rouge let her reflexes take over as they attacked her. She ducked one device, jumped the second and the third outright missed. As they came back for the second time, she threw herself into the hole, plugged by two more of Metal Sonic's weapons, before darting into the unknown.

* * *

Sonic still hadn't gotten up when Rouge entered the picture.

He looked like at least one of his limbs had broken, and based on how many times he'd hit his head, Tails knew he had a concussion (or at least an extremely nasty headache), so counting on him for any more assistance would be a fatal mistake.

Thus, when Rouge entered the picture, it was exactly what Tails needed. While she was in no way a full replacement for Sonic, she could delay the inevitable for just a little longer.

"You can do this, Rouge," Tails yelled. "I don't need much longer!"

Rouge heeded that advice. She couldn't destroy them like Sonic could, but blocking them was good enough. Metal Sonic wasn't willing to take her and sacrifice one of his parts, plus some time, to keep her out of the way.

"Keep going," Tails said, still typing and now breathing heavily, like he was about to cross the finish line of a long-distance race.

"Trying my best!" Rouge, even with all her athletic talent, couldn't keep up with Metal Sonic for long. After fifteen breathless seconds of blocking, ducking, and dodging, she stumbled once, leaving her wide open for a hit. Metal Sonic capitalized on this, swinging one of his pieces into her and sending her careening into Sonic. She managed to stand, but with her moans and the blood flowing from a nasty gash in her head, it looked like she was out of commission.

And Tails was out of options.

Cackling with glee, Metal Sonic reached for a now-exposed Tails, who edged himself as far into the corner as possible, whispering, "Come on, not again, I'm so close…"

As the first appendage touched him, he typed the final line.

As the second one followed, he grabbed the mouse attached to the computer.

Both of them latched onto his tails and started to pull. Tails, just needing a few more seconds, held on with his left hand with everything he had while his right hand kept its grip on the mouse. Seconds passed. His grip grew strained. Fingers began to peel away from their metal handholds, with Tails cursing each one as he clicked in a frenzy.

All Tails could think as he clicked for the final time before the mouse was disconnected and he lost control of the computer was "Please work, please work, please work…"

"Not so superior now, huh?" Metal Sonic was beside himself with ecstasy. "Look at that! Everything you did, was all for nothing. But it's time for me to end this."

But before he could end anything, a shrill beep echoed through the hole, even audible to Eggman up by Metal Sonic's chest. And as Tails was pulled out into the open once more, he was still able to catch a glimpse of the computer screen, which displayed the three most incredible words he'd seen in his life.

_Sonic.exe deleted successfully._


	28. Everything Comes Crashing Down

When everything got drowned out by a shrill beeping noise, Eggman wasn't sure whether they had won or should prepare for the end of the world.

The way things were going, it was probably neither. But that sure as hell didn't stop him from hoping to whatever higher powers he thought existed that whatever the others were doing in there was working.

Metal Sonic bared his teeth, hissing so loudly that Eggman would have covered his ears if he hadn't been focused on holding on as tightly as possible.

"I… will not be beaten… by the likes of you," he cursed as the beeping grew in pitch, volume, and frequency. Not willing to accept defeat, he used one of his remaining appendages to swipe at Eggman, barely missing.

As Eggman dodged more blows, the beeping began to take on a more familiar tone: the noise he'd programmed Metal Sonic to emit whenever an important system failed. At first, Eggman was filled with a potent combination of joy and despair- joy that they'd almost certainly won and despair for the destruction of his dearest creation. Once he realized what that would lead to, though, it got replaced by sheer terror.

Tails' screaming suddenly filled the air. Some of it was just terror-filled, mindless yelling, but when he was able to form words, he shouted, "I think I got him!"

When Eggman risked looking down, he witnessed an astonishing scene. Metal Sonic held fast to all three of them, and Tails was the only one who appeared to be conscious. Sonic and Rouge just dangled in the machine's grasp, limp as rag dolls.

Eggman, despite having the possibility of three of his greatest rivals being eliminated in one fell swoop, chose not to take it. The odds of him surviving without their help weren't great, and if he returned alone, Shadow would probably think he had something to do with their deaths and pound him to smithereens. Thus, he shouted down to Tails, "We need to get out of here! Metal Sonic isn't exactly waterproof, and I think you know what happens when electrical things get wet!"

Tails shuddered a little, even if his movements were constrained by Metal Sonic. Dying at all wasn't going to be enjoyable, but in terms of _ways_ to die, death by electrocution was definitely in the bottom ten.

"Okay," Tails yelled back, "but what am I going to do about Sonic and Rouge? Even if Sonic was conscious, he can't swim, and I doubt swimming is a strong suit of Rouge's, either."

The beeping got louder, forcing Eggman to strain to hear anything Tails said. At the same time, Metal Sonic started roaring as many curses as he knew, trying to throw off his enemies in some bizarre final stand. Eggman began to notice more and more appendages of his just dangling uselessly as Metal Sonic's systems continued to fail.

Suddenly, the limb holding Tails unclenched, and he fell towards the ocean. Then Rouge's. Tails spun his namesakes like crazy, moving over to try and catch Rouge. He didn't exactly succeed in this regard but managed to slow her impact velocity from excruciating to merely painful. It also jolted Rouge back to consciousness, as she visibly shook her head before yelling things that Eggman was too far away to hear.

By now, the noise had reached such a volume that Eggman seriously worried that they'd all go deaf if this kept up much longer. It was even enough to jolt Sonic out of his stupor, causing him to jerk his head around in a frenzy before screaming something unintelligible.

Then the limb holding Sonic released him, sending him plummeting as well. While he'd never been a fan of water to begin with, he at least had the sense to try and rotate himself so he'd land feet-first. It successfully minimized the impact, but it also had the horrifying side effect of Sonic disappearing below the water level and not resurfacing right away as the other two had.

Rouge dove under to try and save him, leaving Tails alone. Eggman sucked in his stomach as much as possible and prepared to jump down to join them.

Metal Sonic screamed at the top of his voice, not even coming up with words, just pure, unadulterated rage, before yelling, "I… will never…"

Then, a sudden silence took over the world as the last of Metal Sonic's systems stopped working.

Including the ones controlling his thrusters.

Eggman threw himself off just as Metal Sonic started plummeting toward the water below. Tails had put a little distance between him and Metal Sonic's landing spot, but Eggman still had no idea about the whereabouts of Sonic or Rouge.

Someone was screaming now.

It might have been him.

Before he was ready, he hit the water, and everything went silent again for a brief, blissful moment as he began clawing for the surface.

That is, until Metal Sonic followed him with a world-shaking boom. Small waves raced outwards from his landing sight as he began to sink. Eggman kept trying to swim upward, but it felt like something was weighing him down- for a terrifying handful of seconds, he couldn't get any closer to air no matter what he tried.

Suddenly, bolts of electricity began erupting from Metal Sonic's now-inactive form, several striking Eggman, causing him to seize up for a second before forcing himself to push harder and rocket to the surface, wanting to avoid the painful sensation of being shocked in water as much as possible.

Tails was somehow afloat amid the wreckage, but Sonic and Rouge still hadn't resurfaced. Tails looked like he'd been shocked as well- his eyes were wide with fear and pain and his teeth were clenched tightly.

In between violent jolts of electricity, Eggman managed to yell, "Do you see Sonic and Rouge?"

"No," Tails replied, his voice full of fear.

After another nasty shock, Eggman slipped underwater for a moment to search the area for Sonic and Rouge, but that effort failed. Not only did the saltwater sting his eyes so badly that he could barely see, but the area was cluttered with detached robot parts and other debris and the water was hard enough to see through to begin with. And one vicious surge of electricity later, he'd launched himself back into the open air in the interest of not having his mustache fried to a crisp.

The first thing he heard once he cleared his head was Tails shouting, "Where are they?"

"I don't know, for all I know, they're-"

But before he was able to conclude that sentence with "dead," Sonic and Rouge broke the surface in a burst of steam and sparks. As the two of them vaulted over Eggman's floating form, he noticed something he didn't expect- Sonic carrying Rouge up, and not vice versa.

The two of them landed right next to Tails, splashing him a little but otherwise not creating much of a disturbance. Sonic started sinking a little, but Tails grabbed him before he got too far, keeping him from going any further. Between that, Rouge's renewed efforts to stay afloat, and the natural density of saltwater, Sonic managed to get back to the surface and stay there.

Tails didn't appear to want to make a move, so Eggman took the initiative here. "What- how did you do that?"

Sonic didn't respond, probably out of tiredness, but Rouge had enough energy to at least answer the question. "Apparently, Sonic can jump underwater just as well as he can in air. He just used pieces of Metal Sonic to vault us to the surface before we both drowned."

"If it worked, that's all that matters," Eggman said. Immediately afterward, he noticed that the jolts of pain were starting to die down as Metal Sonic's electrical power dispersed through the ocean.

Tails managed to summon the energy to talk. "Well? We defeated the bad guy, but now we're stranded in the middle of nowhere and have no way to contact anyone. What do we do now?"

Eggman thought long and hard about that question. Even if the threat had been neutralized, their strength was limited and they had no way to increase it. They wouldn't be able to float forever. Unless they could either get to some kind of solid ground or find someone who could do that for them, it wouldn't be long before they joined Metal Sonic on the ocean floor.

Craning his head around, he saw nothing but water on all sides. Thus, he concluded that trying to reach an island wouldn't be feasible. Sonic couldn't swim, and even if the others had basic knowledge of how to do that, they were nowhere near trained enough to get to the nearest island, even if they had an idea of where the nearest island was (which they didn't).

His opinion, as pessimistic as it was, seemed to be the best option, so he voiced it to the others.

"Looks like all we can do is wait."

* * *

Originally, Shadow thought that in the event of Metal Sonic getting to the mainland, he'd just be more fodder that'd go down quickly. But when Shadow's employers requested that he join them on the mainland, he knew he would have to suck it up and teleport there.

He didn't enjoy teleporting and knew it could destroy the space-time continuum if he did it wrong, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

He'd stayed still for quite a while to build up energy before doing it, but that didn't stop it from bringing quite a bit of agony. Bright lights flashed in seizure-inducing patterns, air that was somehow both freezing and burning whipped past his body, and dizziness took over as he tried not to lose the meager meals he'd eaten that day.

As always, it didn't last too long, which was a good thing. The visions faded, and soon Shadow was on a weather-beaten dock, surrounded by both coworkers he knew well and people he'd never seen before.

One of the ones he knew, a petite but fiery rabbit named Vincent, quickly marched up to Shadow. "Good thing you could make it here, Shadow. We're treating this like Metal Sonic will be here any minute."

"I'll do the same," Shadow said, taking a position where there seemed to be a noticeable gap between people; a stretch near the end of the dock. He saw nothing in the distance, but for all he knew, Metal Sonic could be flying way out to the side to try and avoid a confrontation with any threats. (They'd planned for that by spreading their workers on a forty-mile stretch of the coast, but since this was the closest point on the mainland to Bygone Island by distance, this area was the most heavily guarded.)

Seconds ticked by. The tension only rose. No one lowered their weapons or took their eyes off the ocean for even a second.

Then, on the horizon, Shadow saw smoke. Not much of it, and it was clearly far away, but it was there, a thin, dark gray wisp against a bright blue background.

It was the first sign of action he'd seen in his entire time there, so he made it clear to the others. "Looks like something's going on out there, I'm seeing smoke!"

Those words were relayed down the line until everyone knew about it, then someone shouted back, "Well, what should we do about it?"

"Send a couple of people to look, but keep the rest here in case it's a decoy," Shadow said authoritatively.

Once more, everyone made sure everyone else had heard it before a response was formed. "Makes sense. We brought a helicopter here for a damn good reason, and it looks like now's the time to use it!"

With that, a commotion started stirring. One of the two pilots they'd brought along (them being the replacements for the ones Sonic had murdered a few days ago) got one of the helicopters up and running, the noise of its blades shattering the silence. A few others got in to provide backup in case the helicopter was attacked, and then the thing lifted off, heading in the direction of the smoke.

Shadow was not among them, but he did watch the helicopter as it left, tracing its path as it faded to another gray smudge on the horizon.

* * *

Sonic was close to passing out from fatigue when he first heard- and saw- the helicopter.

The four of them had moved into an awkward formation to try and stave off their demise for as long as they could. Sonic, the only one who couldn't swim, and Tails, who had gone unconscious from the shock of the past ten minutes, were now being supported by Rouge and Eggman, who soldiered on through their weariness, although both of them looked like they hadn't slept in weeks.

With one arm, Sonic began desperately waving while shouting at the sky. "Hey! Down here! We need help!"

Rouge and Eggman quickly joined the chanting, and whether they had been heard or just through some good luck, the helicopter slowed down and eventually stalled almost directly over them before settling into a hover about fifty feet above their heads.

Suddenly, a rope ladder was thrown out of the side, and someone's head stuck out of the window it came from. That someone proceeded to yell, "Are you capable of climbing this?"

"Only one way to find out," Sonic said. But before he could start, Rouge grabbed his arm.

"I'll bring Tails up," she said. "Trying to climb a ladder with one arm free and dead weight while looking and feeling this terrible is just going to get you hurt."

Sonic smiled weakly. "Makes sense," he said, letting go of Tails' slumped form as he began to climb. It was far from easy, but for once he was doing something he was somewhat used to, which helped a lot. Shaking and quivering, he managed to pull himself into the helicopter, joining those already inside.

He stuck his head out to watch the progress of the others. Rouge, carrying Tails, came next, using her wings to steady herself on the way up and provide some lift. Without much trouble, she got both herself and Tails in the cockpit, making sure to set Tails down on the floor when she was done.

Eggman came last. To say he looked graceful on his way up was a preposterous lie, but whatever he did still got the job done. Just like that, no one was left outside.

Now that they were all here, the pilot turned his head before beginning to ask questions. "Uh, two things. One, should we still be worried, and two, what happened to Metal Sonic?"

"One, no," Rouge said, trying to finish before Sonic interrupted her.

"And two, at the bottom of the ocean, thanks to Tails," Sonic said, gesturing to him even though he was still curled up on the floor. "We all helped, but without Tails being here, we would have never managed to defeat him. I'm not sure what he did, but whatever it was, it worked."

"Well," the pilot said, "That's the best news I've heard in quite some time. Guess I should radio back to base." With that, he pressed a couple of buttons, causing the in-helicopter speakers to blast a loud, staticky hiss.

Then, words started coming out of it, those words being, "Commander to Pilot, what's your update on the situation?"

"Neutralized," the pilot said. "The smoke came from Metal Sonic, and he's done for. Everyone in the area has been evacuated, and we're returning to base."

"Roger that," the commander's voice echoed before the speakers went silent once more.

Sonic and the others didn't have the energy to cheer, but they most certainly would have in any other scenario. They'd done it. Another villain incapable of ever threatening anything again. The day saved once more. Them returning home again.

Resting on the slightly vibrating floor of the helicopter, the steady thrum of the blades creating a low, soothing thrum, and with the others safe from harm, Sonic finally allowed himself to pass out, curling up in a ball in the center of the helicopter.

* * *

Since Amy, Knuckles, and Sticks weren't capable of teleporting and Shadow wasn't willing to risk bringing all of them that far, they remained on the island, watching from a strip of rock on the easternmost point of the island.

None of them moved or talked. Hell, even blinking and breathing seemed like luxuries, the way things were going. Every second that the flying machine didn't return was another second of growing despair.

Then the phone which Amy had taken from Sonic's cottage rang. Without hesitation, Amy answered it before the first ring even finished, slamming the thing against her ear.

"Hello? Who's there?"

Then, the response came. And it was two of the best words that she had ever heard in her life.

"It's over."


	29. Silver Linings

Knuckles, Amy, and Sticks couldn't be happier to see the others return.

Said return didn't have much fanfare, but any villager who saw them could probably figure out the implications. However, almost all of the villagers had holed up in their cottages (or wherever their hiding places had been, since the town was partially destroyed) so the three of them were the only people who saw the helicopter land.

As soon as Sonic was in view, Amy hobbled up to him, wrapping him in a rib-crushing hug.

"Whoa, Amy," Sonic said. "Easy! You don't want to kill me, right?"

Amy loosened her grip but didn't let go. "No. I was just so worried… I thought I'd never see you again..."

Sonic didn't have an answer for that, and frankly, he was perfectly fine with letting Amy have a moment. She would have been fine if he'd done the same.

Except for Tails, who was still unconscious inside the helicopter, the others were congregating nearby, with Eggman and Rouge recapping their battle with Metal Sonic (adding plenty of exaggerations and sound effects for a wide-eyed Knuckles). Once that began to die down, the others focused on Amy, who still hadn't released Sonic yet.

Since everyone's eyes were on her, Amy finally relented. Sonic proceeded to go back to the helicopter and sling Tails over his shoulder, moving him to where the others were. When they all gasped upon seeing him in his current state, Sonic soothed their fears, saying, "It'll be okay. He's not dead, just unconscious; we'll figure out what we need to deal with when he wakes up."

Fortunately for them, that didn't take very long. As the first villagers began to exit their hiding spaces and venture into the plaza, Tails began to stir before pushing himself into a sitting position. When he saw the others just kind of standing around, he drew the obvious conclusion. "Did we do it?"

"You did it, Tails," Rouge said. "As of about twenty minutes ago, the virus is at the bottom of the ocean. It'll never pose a threat again."

Tails managed to crack a smile. "Yes."

"Yes indeed, Tails," Sonic said.

At this point, more and more villagers moved into the plaza, staring at them as they did, although they remained remarkably silent and their expressions were mixed at best. Rouge, the most experienced with talking to crowds, decided to be the one to pass on the news to the villagers, and although she had no megaphone on hand, she made sure to talk so that anyone with functioning ears could hear her.

"I don't know what else to say here except that we did it. The threat's gone, you'll never need to worry about it again."

The villagers didn't cheer at that statement. Most of them didn't even crack a smile. Despite the day being saved, many of them had lost things that not even time would help them regain- treasured possessions smashed, bodies crippled, friends and family dead or disfigured. If Amy had to venture a guess, some of them would never forgive Sonic for what his abilities had done to them, even if he'd never been in control.

Sonic seemed to understand that, for before the villagers began to disperse, he chose to speak up. "Before you all go home, I have something to say."

A few villagers just kept walking, but most of them turned around and began to pay attention to what Sonic had to tell them.

"You have every right to be angry with me right now. I've only been with it for about two hours at this point, so I don't know the full extent of the damage I've caused, but based on what I can see right now, it looks pretty bad. I've known forever that my abilities could have caused so much destruction in the wrong hands, and this village is proof of that. While there isn't much I can do to fix everything that's happened here, I promise to all of you that I'll do everything in my power to try. And anyone who knows me knows that I don't break promises."

The remaining villagers had no change in their expressions, but a few began to nod their approval. Sure, Sonic's speech left a lot to be desired, but it was a step in the right direction, something the others could work with on their path to achieving normalcy.

And for now, that was good enough.

Once the crowd had thinned out, Shadow and Rouge ambled over to the group, with Rouge saying, "I hate to interrupt your moment of relaxation, guys, but we should get the ferries up and running again. Can one of you come with me to provide evidence that the threat no longer exists?"

"I'll go," Sticks said. "By now, everybody knows that if I don't see a threat, there is no threat!"

"Okay," Shadow said, "just promise you won't scream into the phone like you did the first time we talked."

"You got it, mister," Sticks said, following Shadow to a more secluded spot where his call would be uninterrupted by passing villagers. As for the others, they just kind of stood around in a combined state of happiness and disbelief.

Rouge seemed to be the most affected by this. "Is it just me, or does all this feel weird now that it's over?"

"Nope, not just you," Sonic said. "I'm feeling it too."

"We should probably tell everyone that the next ferry's coming soon," Tails said. "Knowing Shadow, it'll probably be big enough to take the entire island and then some."

"Probably true," Rouge said. "Still need to tell people."

With that, they marched as a group back to the center of the plaza, ready to make one final announcement.

* * *

Priscila hadn't left the house since Elise had made that first call.

While there had been some news coverage of the incident due to phone calls like Elise's being forwarded to various outlets, because Bygone Island was far away (and also that any news reporters that went in were at serious risk of being killed) information was rare and oftentimes wildly inconsistent- from the five different updates on the subject she'd gotten from five different stations, the death toll ranged anywhere from less than ten to almost a hundred.

However, that wasn't the actual point. Having already lost one of the two people she cared about in her life, it was all she could do to hope that the other one would come home.

In between one thought and the next, the phone rang, just like it always did. Without even waiting for the first ring to finish, Priscilla darted over and snatched it, pulling it up to her ear.

The voice on the other end was clear as day. "Mom?"

Priscilla didn't say anything at first, figuring she'd shout so loud that Elise would permanently go deaf. However, she managed to collect herself enough to speak once more. "Elise! Oh, thank goodness you're alive…"

"It's over, Mom," Elise said. "There's a ferry that's supposed to come this afternoon to take everyone who needs it back to the mainland. I should be at the dock at around six."

That one solitary statement was enough to launch Priscilla directly into euphoria. "I'll be there, don't worry about that!"

"I won't, Mom," Elise said with a chuckle tinged with a bit of sadness. "I'll be home soon. We'll have plenty of time to talk about everything that happened…" Elise trailed off.

"I know," Priscilla said. "We'll both have our feelings to sort through."

"Bye," Elise said, right before the call cut off.

But before Priscilla even put the phone back on the wall, she immediately threw on shoes and hurled herself into the car, preparing to make the short drive to the dock.

She didn't want to leave Elise alone for even a second longer than necessary.

* * *

Surprisingly, Shadow and Rouge had chosen to take the ferry back with everyone else.

While their next mission could come in a matter of hours, using a helicopter to get back now would probably just be seen as poor taste. The villagers had suffered enough losses already- no need to kick them while they were down.

The ferry arrived late in the afternoon, releasing steam into the scorching summer air as it pulled up to the dock, revealing its empty insides. Everyone who was going to the mainland, including Shadow and Rouge, streamed onto the boat, although even with the much-larger-than-normal number of people on the ferry, it didn't take long for that stream to fade to a trickle, and even that soon disappeared. Without any further announcements, the ferry departed, riding much lower in the water than usual.

The trip was surprisingly quiet, considering how packed the ferry was. While a handful of people had subdued conversations with either other passengers or someone speaking to them through a phone, most were silent. All this led to a somber but uneventful journey as the ship cut easily through the water, with one exception.

As they passed by the spot where Metal Sonic had fallen, Shadow was expecting debris to be everywhere, letting those in the boat know exactly what had happened. However, very little of him seemed to remain on the surface: a stray wire here, a piece of scrap metal there. Shadow and Rouge quickly drew the connection, but they both doubted most of the passengers would, and maybe that was for the best. If the threat was gone, that was all that really mattered.

When the mainland's dock appeared on the horizon, the captain didn't even announce that their destination was nearby like he usually did. Everyone was so focused on it anyway that it felt kind of pointless.

A few minutes later, the ship docked with minimal fanfare. The second it was possible to exit the ship, the rush to get off the boat nearly caused a stampede. Shadow and Rouge, however, were in no rush, so they waited for the boat to empty most of the way before getting off the ship themselves.

What they saw on the dock (and later in the parking lot right next to it) was heartwarming, even if none of what was happening was personal to them. Friends reuniting with friends, parents and children seeing each other for the first time in days, lots of hugging and kissing, even more tears. While getting over what had happened on the island for the past few days would be a difficult and lengthy task, but this was a good place to start.

As the two of them marched through the parking lot, looking for a place where they could call their employers once more, a fairly innocuous-looking car pulled up next to them before braking hard. When Shadow looked inside the window to see who was driving, he noticed Vincent's ears sticking straight up, barely being suppressed by the car's ceiling.

He rolled down the window and said two words to the pair of them. "Get in!"

Rouge took shotgun, leaving Shadow to move to the backseat. At this point, though, neither of them cared where they sat. All they knew was that they were probably being led to their next mission.

"Don't worry, not too much happened while you were gone," Vincent said as they pulled out of the parking lot. "I've got two bits of news, though. One, the transport of The Big Boom was successful. And two, a certain someone is finally capable of talking again and would like to speak with you."

Vincent flipped a few switches in the car, then pressed a button to seemingly turn on the radio. However, the first thing to come out of it was most certainly not music.

"Greetings, Shadow the Hedgehog and Rouge the Bat," E-123 Omega's tinny voice echoed. "My status has recently been upgraded to 'Partially Operational,' allowing me to communicate with other life-forms, including you. Did anything of importance happen while I was non-operational?"

Shadow sighed a little before taking over the conversation. "We've got kind of a long story for you, Omega," he said. "I think it'll be best told when we meet face-to-face."

"Explanation accepted," Omega said. "I will prepare for this 'long story.' However, until you arrive, I may be taken back offline for further repairs."

"Makes sense," Rouge said, right before the radio cut to the usual buzzing of static.

As the car adeptly wove through the afternoon traffic, the events of the last few days seemed to firmly be moved into the past. While they'd have quite a tale to tell Omega once they arrived, it was just that, a tale. Not a threat, not a danger, not a forewarning of the apocalypse.

For them, this had finally been marked as another job well done.

* * *

Elise couldn't wait for even a second once the ferry docked.

She joined the mass of people spilling off the boat the instant she was capable of doing so, nearly tripping and falling into the water in the process. Nevertheless, it didn't take long for her to find her mother in the crowd of people and charge straight for her.

Once the two of them collided with each other with a force only slightly outmatched by a meteor crashing into a planet, they embraced for the first time since Elise had left on that fateful trip.

At first, Priscilla could barely even choke out words. "Elise… Oh, Elise…"

"I know, Mom," Elise said in return. "It's me."

"Please," Priscilla said. "I know this isn't your fault, but never scare me like that again."

"I won't," Elise said. "Not if I can help it."

They quietly walked back to the car, Elise relaying the terrifying events of the past few days to her mother as best as she could. Her voice broke when she got to the part where Aunt Lina had been cruelly, senselessly murdered, causing both mother and daughter to break down in tears.

Elise didn't hold back- she continued onward even after they got to the car. Tears squeezed out her eyelids as she told about Sonic's first laser attack, the entire village being captured and placed in the mental equivalent of a prison, Sonic's second laser attack after they all had broken free, and Metal Sonic blasting off from the island, never to be seen again.

By that point, both parties were emotionally wrecked and neither of them (even if Elise was old enough to have a permit) was in a state capable of driving home. Thus, they just sat in the car for a while, Elise slumped against the door in the passenger seat while Priscilla leaned over the steering wheel right next to her.

It took quite some time of just sitting there in silence, not speaking a word to each other, but eventually the two of them had calmed down enough that Priscilla risked starting the car so they could get home. Their car pulled out of the parking lot (strangely, right behind the car Shadow and Rouge were sitting in) and began navigating the familiar streets to return to their house.

The past few days might have been one of the most trying times the two of them had ever been through, but they were over now. All that was left to do was start the process of recovery, taking steps to ensure that while they'd never forget these events, soon they'd be able to look ahead to a new time, and not back to the horrors they'd been through.

With a little luck (and probably some counseling), soon they'd be ready to face any new challenges that lay on the road ahead.


	30. Yet Another Rainy Day

The day after the apocalypse also started off with a bang. Or several, depending on who you asked.

It was storming outside once more, perhaps even more viciously than last time. No news report was needed this time for everyone to figure out that they should probably stay inside.

However, where that area was varied quite considerably from the usual. Since Sonic had decimated a large portion of the village while being possessed, only a fraction of the homes there were capable of protecting against even the most basic weather. Thus, some of the villagers had gone to live with relatives on the mainland for the time being, while others had been temporarily relocated, Sonic included.

The mayor's office had taken in a couple of families in for now, as had a handful of the villagers with houses that were still standing, including Amy and Knuckles. A handful had even gone to live in vacant rooms in Eggman's fortress, although that was a choice made only by a few brave souls.

Because Tails' house was nowhere near the village, it hadn't even been touched during the destruction, and it wasn't too hard of a task to clear out a handful of Tails' storage spaces to put together makeshift bedrooms to take in some of the displaced villagers.

While two relatively unrelated families had also moved in, Tails had made a space for Sonic as well, separate from the others just in case they still held any animosity towards Sonic for what he'd done to them while possessed. From the first twenty-four hours' worth of experience, though, it didn't seem to be that way- while the parents kept a close eye on their children while he was around and the children seemed afraid to approach him, those feelings were mostly relegated to unease instead of anger, which was a good thing.

Sonic had tried his best to make himself useful while he was around, for since Knuckles was out of the picture (he'd regained some autonomy with his left arm and now was able to move his fingers and even bend it at the elbow to some extent, but he still couldn't lift it or really hold on to anything), he was the muscle of the group, at least for now. He'd spent quite a bit of time helping Tails carry some of his inventions outside (and then being woken up in the middle of the night to get anything water-sensitive back inside before the rain started) as well as setting up places for the temporary residents to sleep. Finally, with a heavy heart, he'd collected those whom he'd killed while possessed and moved them to a cool, enclosed space near the graveyard (which had functioned as a temporary morgue even before all this happened), not wanting them to be savaged by wild animals before their burials.

As for the future, there was to be a funeral service for those who had been killed next week; Amy had secured someone from the mainland to officiate it. They would have started rebuilding the village that day, but the rain had dumped on that plan both figuratively and literally. Finally, while most of the stalls and businesses were at least intact, if not untouched, most weren't ready to open just yet- while there was talk that the general store would be open as soon as the storms stopped, everything else, from Meh Burger to the various stalls that usually dotted the village, were likely to remain closed at least until after the funeral service, if not longer.

Tails, to the surprise of everyone in the house, wasn't coding or tinkering with anything. Instead, he just sat by the window and watched the rain fall, even as Sonic walked up to him.

"Tails," Sonic said as he stopped to look at him, "are you okay?"

"No," Tails said back, "and at this point, I'm not sure if I'm ever going to be okay again."

Sonic knew why, everyone did. It was obvious. "Tails, you have to realize this wasn't your fault. Unless your program was supposed to do all this- and I doubt it was- the reason I became what I did had nothing to do with you."

"Even if that's true," Tails said, "you're not seeing the whole picture. The actual cause might not have been my fault, but everything leading up to it was. It was my fault for making the program to begin with, it was my fault for having weak enough firewalls that the virus could get onto my computer, and it was my fault for not checking to see what was going on with my computer before I started running the program."

As much as Sonic wanted to help Tails, it was pretty hard to argue with his logic there. It always was, which was somehow both the most endearing part of him and the part he got annoyed with most frequently.

"Well, even if that's the case, you have to move on," Sonic said. "I get it, one hundred percent. You feel terrible that all this happened because of something you did, and it makes sense; I'd feel the same way too. But if you let this one event define you over everything else you've done for us, you're never going to stop hurting, and eventually that's going to impact far more people than just you."

"I _am_ moving on," Tails said. "I'm moving on from programming entirely, or at the very least, taking an extended break."

Sonic would have done a spit take if he had anything in his mouth, but instead, it was just an over-the-top double take. "Wait… did I hear that right?"

"Yes, you did," Tails said. "Although I might have overstated it a little, sorry about that. I might not stop entirely for the time being, but I don't want to make anything new until I can analyze what I've already made and fix it. That way, I'll be sure nothing like this can ever happen again, and while it won't have undone any of the damage it's already caused, it'll prevent anyone else from ever being in the same situation as me."

"Now you're talking," Sonic said. "That sounds just like something you'd say. Am I getting to you or was that just coincidence?"

Tails didn't move. "In the end, does it even matter?"

"Not that much, I guess," Sonic said. "Well, I'm going to go check on the others- see how they're doing. I'll be back here in a few."

"Okay," Tails said. "Just tell me if anything seems off."

"I will," Sonic said. Then, without further ado, he stepped out into the pouring rain and darted off towards Amy's house as fast as he could.

* * *

Amy's state of being seemed fine, as did those of Knuckles and Sticks.

Knuckles had moved in with Amy for the time being to help her with housework while her leg mended (while she merely didn't use it for now, she was scheduled to go to the mainland the next day to get a real cast for it) and they'd taken in another family as well. When he arrived, all seven of them had been camped in the living room watching a decent comedy show. He hadn't stuck around for long, though- he had a brief conversation with Amy and Knuckles before speeding off to Sticks' burrow.

While Sticks had opened up the burrow to anyone who needed to stay, no one besides her appeared to be home when she let Sonic inside. Sticks claimed she had taken in another family- evidenced by the six cots spread on the floor of her living room- but also said that they really only used it as a place to sleep. Unfortunately, Sonic kind of agreed with them; listening to her conspiracy theories for hours on end would get grating and fast.

He would have gone to see Eggman as well, but the ocean was such a bedlam of waves that even with his fortress acting as a breakwater it'd be a risky transition, and with Tails' plane gone and the helicopter having gone back to the mainland, there would be nothing to aid his transport across. Thus, he'd have to settle for a phone call- he made a mental note to try and do just that sometime that afternoon.

When he returned to Tails' house, nothing seemed any different. The rain was pouring as hard as ever, all the blinds were still drawn, no light penetrated outside. However, when he approached the front door so he could get inside, he noticed Tails had left a note on the front door.

It read, "Eggman managed to send me a message somehow, he's found a way to get to the village. As far as I can tell, he's not planning on attacking, but be prepared just in case. I know I'll be."

"I don't know, Eggman rarely comes to the village unless he has some kind of ulterior motive," Sonic said under his breath. "Probably should warn the others to make sure he isn't up to no good."

And just like that, he'd dashed off a second time to the same places, but this time for a vastly different reason.

* * *

By the time Sonic had rounded up everyone else and gotten them to the center of the plaza, he and the others thoroughly soaked.

As the group finally stopped moving, lightning flashed overhead, almost immediately followed by a loud crack of thunder. Eggman didn't appear to have arrived yet, for the area was empty except for them.

But after a couple of minutes' worth of waiting, a single beam of light came from somewhere on the horizon, and a cloud of smoke followed not long afterward. Without much of a warning, a fairly large machine seemed to drop from the sky, not fifteen feet from where the group was standing. Then, he slowed down quite a bit and landed on the muddy ground with a noticeable squelching sound.

Then, the smoke stopped, the light shut off, and the top retracted as Doctor Eggman stood up. Besides wearing a ludicrously oversized hat, probably to act as some sort of protection against the rain, it was the same old Eggman the others saw on any normal day.

"Sorry for making such a sudden appearance," Eggman said, "but considering I had no idea if this thing was even going to work, I should consider it lucky that I even got here."

"Okay then," Tails said. "Just two questions. First off, why did you want to meet us now, and secondly, why did you choose to do it here while you know it's pouring rain?"

"I had something important to say, and I wanted to make sure we got away from prying eyes, respectively," Eggman replied.

Sonic didn't seem that impressed. "Well, we're here and I don't think anyone in their right mind would be out in this weather. Speak now or forever hold your peace."

Eggman noticeably gulped, paused for a few seconds, and then continued. "I know I'm probably going to hate myself for saying this, and if Orbot and Cubot were around to hear it I'd never live it down. But I have to do it anyway… thank you for saving my life, both back when this all started and while Metal Sonic was possessed."

The others had no real idea what to make of this. The idea of Eggman expressing gratitude toward anything, especially them, was a concept so alien it actually startled them for a second. Sticks even said, "Wait, are you the real Eggman or some horrific impostor?"

"Nope, it's me in the flesh," Eggman said. "And yes, you heard that correctly. I sincerely have to thank you for what you did to help me. Without you guys helping, not only would I have been dead, but everyone else on this island might have been as well, and even the mainland would have been in grave danger."

"Well, we're the heroes of this world," Sonic said. "We're supposed to do things like that. And you of all people should know this is far from the first time we've had to save the world."

The whole group went quiet for a time after that, nothing but the thunder and rain penetrating the silence. Lightning frequently flashed over their heads, but no one made a move to get out of the rain; most of them barely even flinched. Maybe it was because the thunderstorm seemed like a pathetic threat compared to the one they faced yesterday, or maybe it was because none of them wanted to be the first to leave the others behind. But either way, they all stood there for what felt like quite some time before Eggman finally spoke.

"I probably should go," he said. "Orbot and Cubot are probably annoying the hell out of the people staying there, and I forgot to give them something to do before I left. You won't be seeing me much for a while- all I want to do right now is to rebuild Metal Sonic and properly this time; it won't be the same, but it'll be as close as I can make it. We'll meet again and we might not be on the same side next time, but know that you have my respect, if nothing else."

With that, Eggman threw down the top of his new flying machine and started the engine back up. However, that was when things appeared to go wrong. Because the machine was currently sitting in about four inches of mud, and since Eggman had propelled himself straight up with his liftoff (which was much faster than even he expected), when he launched upwards, mud splattered in a ring around the machine. Most of it landed roughly near where it came from. The rest, however, splattered all over the five onlookers below him, much to their shock (and to those who didn't have time to close their mouths, disgust).

Eggman appeared to have noticed what had happened because instead of flying off, he just hovered in midair for a few seconds before popping the top of his machine back open to look down at what he'd done.

For whatever reason, though, no one seemed to even be mildly annoyed. Instead, he heard the sound of hysterical laughter, punctuated by periodic thunderclaps. Sticks got this the hardest, having doubled over in the mud and nearly suffocating herself in the process. Even Tails was laughing.

"Okay, I don't get this," Eggman yelled down. "What the hell is so funny?"

Sonic managed to choke out his answer between bursts of laughter. "Honestly, that just broke the tension. Even though we might have been on the same side at one point, it just feels really refreshing to have things start to go back to the way they used to be."

"I didn't even mean to do that," Eggman said. Then, he immediately dropped like a stone again, this time not slowing down. Another ring of mud sprayed out from the landing site, drenching the rest of them even more.

"Now that one, _that_ was intentional," he said with a smile. "I'm almost sorry to say this, but I guess old habits die hard."

"No worries," Sonic said. "It's in your nature, and honestly, we kind of enjoy the action. I'll even give you a ten-second head start this time."

"Oh, you are so on," Eggman said, lifting off hard this time to try and get them soaked in mud a third time, but by now they'd grown wary to his tactics and given the machine space. Then, he blasted forwards, leaving the others behind with a shout of "So long, Team Sonic!"

"You wish," Sonic said as he began counting on his fingers.

Once he reached ten, everyone began charging after him, even Amy (although she was being carried by Sonic to ensure she got a taste of the excitement). Soon, Eggman would be in sight again, and what would happen after that was anybody's guess.

They all knew it would take a while for the village to regain the sense of normalcy it had before all this happened. They also knew that no matter what they could do, nothing would be truly the same anymore. However, their somewhat-friendly rivalries with each other appeared to be one of the constants in their lives that didn't change, no matter the circumstances. In terms of their relationship, things were already going back to normal.

And normal was just the way they liked it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading this all the way through, and I hope you enjoyed Horror.exe: Rebirth. See you around!


End file.
